The Social Feed widget can show posts from a Facebook page or from an individual Facebook account, laid out as a grid, a masonry wall or a carousel.
The widget talks to Facebook’s own API, so the one thing you must have before you start is a valid access token.
Requirement – This widget is a part of The Plus Addons for Elementor Pro, make sure it’s installed & activated to enjoy all its powers.
Before You Start
- Edition: Pro — Social Feed ships only in The Plus Addons for Elementor Pro. With Pro deactivated the widget does not render at all, and there is no free version of it.
- Prerequisite: Elementor (free) installed and active.
- Widget to enable: go to The Plus Addons > Widgets, search for Social Feed and turn its toggle on.
- Prerequisite: your server must be able to make outbound HTTPS requests. The feed is fetched server-side while the page renders, not by the visitor’s browser.
- Prerequisite: a Facebook credential, pasted into the widget’s Access Token field. Getting one is a separate job on Facebook’s own developer site — see How to Get a Facebook Access Token for WordPress? (Easy Method).
Add a Facebook feed
- Edit the page with Elementor and drag the Social Feed widget onto it.
- In Content > Content Feed, pick a Layout (Grid, Masonry or Carousel) and a Style.
- Open the item under Social Feeds and set Source to Facebook.
- Choose Facebook Type: Individual (the default, a personal profile) or Page.
- Paste your token into Access Token, or use the Generate Access Token button just above it. There is a separate button for each Facebook Type, and the token you get is only valid for that type.
- If you chose Page, put the page’s numeric id in Page ID.
Settings in a Facebook feed item
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Facebook Type | Individual for a personal profile, Page for a page. | Individual |
| Access Token | The Facebook token. A three-line text box. | empty |
| Page ID | The page’s numeric id. Only shown for Page. | empty |
| Content Type | Which kinds of post to include. You can pick more than one. | photo, video |
| Show Album | Include photos from an album on the account. | Off |
| Max Album Photo | How many photos to take from the album. | 8 |
| Category (For Filter) | A label for this feed, used by Filter Option when you mix several feeds. Comma-separated. | empty |
| Max Results | How many posts this feed contributes. 1 to 100. | 6 |
Max Results is the count control for Facebook. The Maximum Posts and Offset Post fields higher up in the same item are shown for every source but only affect the RSS one.
Change the layout
The layout is not a Facebook setting — it is the Layout control at the top of Content Feed, and it works the same whichever source you use.
- Grid — equal cards in rows. Set the columns per device in Columns Manage.
- Masonry — the same cards, packed by height.
- Carousel — a slider. Columns Manage and Filter Option disappear and the slider settings move to Style > Carousel.
How It Behaves
- The feed is fetched by your server while the page renders. The posts are in the HTML before the visitor’s browser does anything.
- A token that Facebook rejects produces a visible error card, not an empty space. The card reads Somthing Wrong and 400 with the word Facebook under it.
- An untouched widget already says Facebook. Source defaults to Facebook, so a widget you drop and never configure shows Empty Access Token.
Limitations
- A token belongs to one Facebook Type. A token generated for Individual will not work for a Page and the other way round. To switch, save the page, reload the editor, and generate a new token for the type you want.
- Facebook tokens expire. A freshly generated one lasts about two hours; extending it gets you about two months. When it lapses the feed stops and you have to generate a new one.
- When the connection fails you get a pink card and an HTTP code, not an explanation. With a token that is missing, expired, of the wrong type or simply wrong, the widget renders a card reading Somthing Wrong (that spelling is the plugin’s) followed by 400 and the network name. It does not say which of those things went wrong. The two cases you can tell apart are an entirely empty Access Token, which says Empty Access Token, and X (Twitter), which returns Invalid or expired token. with Error Code : 89.
- The Maximum Posts and Offset Post fields inside a feed item only affect WP RSS Feed. They are shown whatever Source you pick, but the widget reads them only on the RSS path. For every other source the count control is Max Results (default 6), further down the same item.
- Filter Option and Columns Manage disappear in the Carousel layout. Both sections are hidden when Layout is Carousel; the carousel has its own column settings under Style > Carousel.
- The feed is fetched on your server, and cached. Nothing is requested from the visitor’s browser, so a feed that works on one host can fail on another that blocks outbound requests. Refresh Time (default 1 day) decides how often the request is repeated.
Not verified
So you know exactly what has and has not been checked:
- A feed of real posts from a connected Facebook account. This page was checked without ever entering a real access token, API key or password, so what the finished Facebook feed looks like once connected was not observed for this revision.
- Content Type, Show Album and Max Album Photo. These need a connected account to have any effect, so only their labels and defaults are known.
- Lazy Load. Only Load More was exercised; the Lazy Load branch of More Post Loading Options was not.
- Styles 2, 3 and 4, and the Style tab as a whole. Only Style 1 and Style 2 were rendered, and no styling control other than Unique Carousel ID was exercised.
- Performance, Save Data, Delete and Refresh Time. The cached-feed path was never exercised — what is written here about it comes from the panel’s own notes and defaults.
- On Post Click, FancyBox, the two scrolling bars and Text Limit. Labels and defaults only; no click-through was measured.
Troubleshooting
The page shows "Somthing Wrong" and 400
Facebook refused the request. Work through it in this order: is the token present; has it expired; was it generated for the Facebook Type you have selected; and, for a page, is Page ID the numeric id rather than the page’s name?
It says Empty Access Token
The Access Token field is blank. Paste the token, or use Generate Access Token.
The feed worked yesterday and is broken today
The token almost certainly expired. Generate a new one and extend it, then paste it back in.
I updated the token but the old error is still on the page
The response is cached. In Performance, click Delete, then toggle Performance off and on again.
