CollectSocials puts your social posts and customer reviews on your WordPress\nsite, in a design you control. You build a feed once in the hosted CollectSocials\nstudio, copy its feed key, and paste that key into the CollectSocials Feed block\non any page. There is no settings screen to fill in first.<\/p>\n\n
Social feed tools usually meter how much traffic your feed gets, because every\nvisitor fetches it from their servers. This plugin does not work that way. On a\nschedule you choose, it copies each feed's posts, its design and the renderer\nscript into your own site's database, and from then on your own domain serves\nevery page view. Once a feed has synced, its views are not metered and no view\ncounter ticks down, so there is no traffic tier to outgrow: a cached feed on a\nsite with a million monthly visitors costs exactly what it costs on a site with\nten. That is true on the free plan<\/strong>, not only on paid ones.<\/p>\n\n The one exception, stated plainly: a feed that has not completed its first sync\nyet \u2014 or one this site cannot cache, because its key is wrong or you are past\nthe 20-feed limit \u2014 is loaded from CollectSocials on each visit instead, and\nthose views do count against your plan. The Feeds screen shows each feed's sync\nstatus so you can see which case you are in.<\/p>\n\n It is also why this plugin has a sync interval, a \"Sync now\" button and a sync\nstatus screen at all. A plugin that loads a feed from somebody else's server on\nevery visit has nothing to schedule and nothing to report. This one holds your\nposts, so it tells you when it last fetched them and whether that worked.<\/p>\n\n The feed also still renders on the day a social network has an outage, and\nnothing on the page calls out to CollectSocials. The photos and videos\nare the one exception, and worth stating plainly: those are still served by the\nsocial network from its own CDN \u2014 as they are in every plugin of this kind \u2014 so\nduring an outage you keep the layout, the captions and the links, and the\npictures are the part that can go missing.<\/p>\n\n A single feed can mix as many of these as your plan allows:<\/p>\n\n Feeds are assembled in the CollectSocials studio from three layers (layout, card\ntemplate and theme) across 40 layouts, including grid, masonry, carousel\nand mosaic. Colours, fonts, spacing, borders,\nheaders and separate mobile styling are all editable. The plugin then renders the\ndesign you published through the same renderer a hosted embed uses, so there is\nno second set of styles to keep in sync inside your theme.<\/p>\n\n Worth being plain about, because it is unusual: all 16 themes, the theme builder\nand every built-in card template are on the free plan. Styling is not the part we\nhold back. Layouts are where free stops \u2014 it covers seven of the 40 (grid, list,\ncarousel, masonry, mosaic, slider and stagger) and paid plans open the rest.<\/p>\n\n Three sources, a daily refresh, all 16 themes plus the theme builder, seven of\nthe 40 layouts, every built-in card template, and unlimited plugin-served views.\nBecause the plugin serves synced feeds from your own site, their\npage views do not count against a quota \u2014 a busy WordPress site can stay on the\nfree plan indefinitely. Every platform listed above is available on free except X\n(Twitter)<\/strong>, which is premium. Paid plans (Pro, Business, Scale) add the\nremaining layouts, the custom card builder, more sources, a faster refresh and\nhigher limits. There is nothing to buy inside WordPress: the\nplugin is free and works with whichever plan your account is on, and upgrades\nhappen on collectsocials.com.<\/p>\n\n New posts are collected upstream on your CollectSocials plan's schedule \u2014 daily\non the free plan. The plugin re-syncs that cached data on the WordPress interval\nyou pick: hourly, twice daily or daily. It defaults to twice daily rather than\ndaily because the photos and videos in a feed are served by the social networks\nthemselves, from links that expire after a day or two. A sync does not mint new\nlinks \u2014 it copies whatever was collected upstream \u2014 but the shorter interval\nmeans your site starts serving newly collected links sooner, instead of holding\na day-old copy of them. Syncing more often than your plan collects simply\nre-reads the same data, so this is not a real-time feed, and we would rather say\nso here than have you find out later.<\/p>\n\n The same CollectSocials account powers embeds on any website, so a feed you build\nfor WordPress works wherever else you need it.<\/p>\n\n How it works \/ data disclosure:<\/strong> this plugin connects to your CollectSocials\naccount (collectsocials.com) using the public feed key you paste into a block or\ninto the CollectSocials menu. On the schedule you choose it downloads your feed's\nposts and design into this site's database, and a copy of the widget renderer\nscript into your uploads folder, then serves every page view locally. No visitor\ndata is sent to CollectSocials, and once a feed has synced, no part of a page\nload calls CollectSocials. Before that first sync completes, and for a feed the\nplugin cannot cache (see the 20-feed limit above), the page falls back to\nloading that feed from CollectSocials the way a plain embed would.\nThe images and videos inside a feed are the exception every social feed plugin\nshares: they are hosted by the social network and load from its CDN, so a\nvisitor's browser does request those files from that network. A free\nCollectSocials account is required: https:\/\/collectsocials.com\/?ref=wordpress\nThe service's terms of use are at https:\/\/collectsocials.com\/terms-of-service and\nits privacy policy is at https:\/\/collectsocials.com\/privacy-policy<\/p>\n\n Attribution is optional and off by default.<\/strong> The CollectSocials menu has an\nunticked checkbox, \"Show a small 'Powered by CollectSocials' link under my\nfeeds\". Leave it alone and this plugin adds no credit link to your page. Tick it\nonly if you would like to credit the plugin, and untick it whenever you change\nyour mind. (If branding is switched off for your CollectSocials plan, no link is\nadded regardless of the checkbox.)<\/p>\n\n Separately from that checkbox, and worth stating plainly: on the CollectSocials\nfree plan<\/strong> the feed itself carries a small \"Powered by CollectSocials\" line,\ndrawn by the CollectSocials renderer inside the feed, exactly as it does on any\nfree CollectSocials embed anywhere. That is a property of the free plan rather\nthan of this plugin, and any paid plan removes it from your CollectSocials\ndashboard with no change here. Ticking the checkbox above on a free plan does\nnot add a second one; the plugin's own link replaces the one inside the feed.<\/p>\n\n\n Yes. The plugin is free, and CollectSocials has a free plan \u2014 3 sources, a\ndaily refresh, all 16 themes plus the theme builder, seven of the 40 layouts,\nand unlimited plugin-served views \u2014 that a live site can run on. Paid plans add\nthe remaining layouts, the custom card builder, more sources, a faster refresh,\nhigher limits and the premium X (Twitter) platform.<\/p><\/dd>\nPlatforms in one feed<\/h4>\n\n
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Designed once, rendered exactly<\/h4>\n\n
What the free plan covers<\/h4>\n\n
How often it updates<\/h4>\n\n
Beyond this site<\/h4>\n\n
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[collectsocials key=\"your-feed-key\"]<\/code>).<\/li>\n\n
Is the plugin free?<\/h3><\/dt>\n