Interacting with the Fediverse from a WordPress blog

The ActivityPub plugin allows interaction with the Fediverse from a WordPress blog.

The integration of the Fediverse with blogging platforms such as WordPress has gained relevance thanks to the interaction capabilities offered by certain plugins. A prominent example is the ActivityPub plugin, which allows WordPress blog posts to connect directly with Fediverse platforms such as Mastodon, Pleroma, Pixelfed, among others.

Some users might not be aware of how to take advantage of this advanced functionality or might face compatibility issues on certain platforms. How can the ActivityPub plugin be effectively used on a WordPress blog to maximize interaction with the Fediverse, and what are the limitations that need to be considered?

The ActivityPub plugin in WordPress allows blog posts to automatically appear in the home feed of followers on various platforms in the Fediverse. Users can reply to these posts from their fediverse social network, and their responses will appear as comments on the blog. Additionally, it is possible to continue the conversation from the blog, with responses appearing on the original platform. This process encourages seamless communication between the blog and the Fediverse.

Let’s see it in detail.

Automatically post to your followers’ home feed on Mastodon

Thanks to the ActivityPub plugin, when you publish a post on your blog, it is automatically seen in the home feed of people following you on Mastodon (or other fediversa platform like Pleroma / Akkoma , friendica , Hubzilla , Pixelfed , Misskey , etc.)

If your followers use lists to see your updates, the post will appear there.

But the magic is that if your follower makes a response to your post from the fediversa platform, you will see it on your blog as a comment on the post.

And the good thing is that you can reply from your blog comment, with the message appearing as a response to the first reply… And so on (see image).

ActivityPub Blocks

The plugin has three blocks:

• Fediverse Followers – Display your Fediverse followers on your website.
• Follow me on the Fediverse . Display your Fediverse profile so visitors can follow you.
• Federated Reply – Reply to posts, notes, videos, and other content from the Fediverse. Make sure the URL is from a federated social network like Mastodon, as other URLs may not work as expected.

Followers of the Fediverse

This is what gives you the possibility to know who follows you from a fediverse platform like Mastodon. On this Blogpocket page we show our fediverse followers.

Follow me on the Fediverse

This is a block that gives you the opportunity to invite your blog readers to follow you from the Fediverse.

Federated response

This block does the magic of threaded interaction by starting conversations from your blog post in response to a Mastodon post. This block does not seem to work on all fediverse platforms, as stated in the official ActivityPub plugin documentation.

For this to work you need to enter the URL of the fediversa post. Your blog post will be displayed directly as a reply to the post on Mastodon. See the example:

Conclusions

One of the advantages of federating a blog is that it offers the possibility of using the fediverse as an RSS reader. However, as we have seen, the mechanism of federating a WordPress blog is much more powerful than what a simple RSS reader provides: it generates bidirectionality, which is impossible in an RSS aggregator.

More info

• Unlocking the Power of Federation: An Introduction to Connecting Your WordPress Website to the Fediverse. Discover the magic of connecting your website to the Fediverse! Improve interactivity, simplify content sharing, and own your audience by federating your website.