in Social Media, Wordpress

Google+ Interactive Posts Plugin for WordPress

This Google+ Interactive Posts Plugin offers the opportunity to easily create interactive posts from within the WordPress “Posts” admin page, better enabling engagement for the content you push through the Google+ social platform.

How so?

It’s simple. Google+ added Interactive Posts to its social-media arsenal months ago, allowing for all of those interesting and enlightening posts shared through Google+ to now have a formal call to action embedded within each post.

screenshot of google+ post with a comment call to action

The Google+ Interactive Posts Plugin posts directly from your WordPress blog, with the Google-approved Call to Action (CTA) button of your choice anchoring the post. And the plugin makes it extremely easy to do so.

Download the Google+ Interactive Posts Creator Version 1.0.6
or add from the WordPress Plugin Directory

Installation:

  1. Download the WordPress plugin.
  2. In the WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins->Add New.
  3. Click upload on the top of the page.
  4. Browse for the plugin’s zip file that you downloaded locally to your computer.
  5. Click “install now”.
  6. Click “Activate”.

Using the Plugin

  1. Enable the Google+ API and get your “client id”. It is obtainable from: https://code.google.com/apis/console/. Input your API “client ID” in the form located under Settings->Google+ Interactive Posts Plugin. Click “Update”.
  2.  
    screenshot of enabling the google+ api
    finding the client id screenshot
    inputing the client id in the wordpress plugin

  3. Under the Posts page in your WordPress dashboard, there will be a “Create an Interactive Post on Google+” column. You can then click “Create Google+ Post” next to each post. A page will open up guiding you through the process of creating an interactive Google+ post with the various CTAs (call to actions) available.
  4. creating an interactive google+ post in wordpress dashboard

  5. Create your interactive post and send it to your Google+ account!

interactive goole+ post popup screenshot

send interactive post to google+

Using the Shortcode feature:

As of version 1.0.6, you can include an interactive share button in posts and pages using the shortcode [interactivebutton] with the parameters client_id, prefill_text, cta_label, cta_url, and button_text.

Example::
[interactivebutton client_id=”#######” prefill_text=”Prefill text can be *written* here.” cta_label=”DOWNLOAD” cta_url=”http://example.com/cta/destination/” button_text=”Share as an Interactive Post on Google+”]

Update:
For those of you that are confused, having difficulty getting set-up with the API/plugin, or would like to yield additional benefits from the plugin, I recommend checking out this set of video tutorials made by the great BlueGlass UK:

Part 1 (How To Connect Your Google+ Account to the Google+ API)

Part 2 (How To Post Google+ Interactive Posts To Your WordPress Blog)

Thanks to Mike Arnesen who created the original tool from which this plugin is based.

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    • I’m glad you like the plugin Daniel. The button placed at the end was created using the shortcode feature of my plugin and not the swellpath command center. Cheers!

    • Unfortunately, that is not yet a part of the feature set. I like the idea though, and will keep it mind for its next release (well overdue). Are you thinking more of a scheduling or an automatic share upon publishing a post?

  1. No matter what I do, when I go to share my interactive post, I get an “origin mismatch” error message from Google. What am I doing wrong?

    • Hi Mark. Thanks for dropping by. There are several things that can be going on:
      1) The client id is improperly formatted within the wordpress settings
      2) The google+ api isn’t set-up correctly for your website. The subdomain must match exactly, even if just www.
      3) the client id doesn’t match your personal google+ profile
      If none of these work, watch the BlueGlass videos. They are excellent walk-through. Also, I’d be more than willing to work with you over email, phone, or chat.