Widgets
Social media widgets, one network at a time.
Nine networks, nine sets of rules. The widget is the easy part: what decides whether your idea works is which account type the platform demands and what its API will actually hand over. This page is the map; each network page is the detail.
What is a social media widget?
A social media widget is a small piece of embed code that displays posts from a social network on your own website. It connects to an account you control, pulls in new posts automatically, and renders them in your site's styling, so the content stays current without anyone uploading a screenshot.
The word covers two different things in practice. Some widgets are single-network (an Instagram widget, a Google Reviews widget) and show one account. Others are aggregators: one widget, several networks, curated into a single feed. Vitraz does both, because the difference is a setting rather than a product.
A widget for each network
These pages are not one template with the network name swapped in. Each network differs in the thing buyers actually need to know before they plan around it, and that difference is what each page is about.
Instagram widget
In developmentPosts, Reels and carousels from a Professional account. The API will not speak to a personal one, and hashtag search is metered harder than most people expect.
Google Reviews widget
Available nowStar ratings, review text and dates from your public Maps listing. Nothing to verify, and a hard ceiling of five reviews per place that shapes the whole page.
YouTube widget
Available nowChannel uploads and Shorts as a thumbnail gallery, with durations and view counts. Works today: it needs an API key, not an app review.
Facebook feed widget
In developmentPage updates, photos and events. Pages only, never personal profiles, and you have to actually administer the Page you are connecting.
Twitter (X) feed widget
Studio and upPaste any public @handle, or a hashtag or mentions. No sign-in. Text-first layouts, billed per post on Studio and up.
LinkedIn feed widget
In developmentCompany page updates for careers pages and B2B homepages. Needs an admin role on the organisation, which is the step most people are missing.
RSS feed widget
Available nowAny RSS or Atom feed: a blog, a podcast, a news source. No API key, no account, no approval process, which makes it the fastest way to see the product work.
Bluesky widget
Available nowAny public account, by its handle. Bluesky serves public posts to anyone who asks, so there is no key, no sign-in and no review to wait for.
Mastodon widget
Available nowAny public account on any server, read from the server it lives on. Posts behind a content warning, or not set to public, stay off the wall.
What each network demands before it will hand anything over
Most disappointment with social widgets happens at this table rather than in the editor. The account requirement is the part nobody mentions until you have already promised a launch date.
| Network | What the account has to be | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Business or Creator: never personal | Posts, Reels, carousels, captions, permalinks | |
| Google Reviews | Nothing: it reads the public listing | Rating, text, reviewer name and date, five per place |
| YouTube | Any public channel | Uploads and Shorts, durations, view counts |
| A Page you administer | Page posts, photos, events | |
| X (Twitter) | Any public account | Original posts; hashtags and mentions from the last seven days |
| Admin on the organisation | Company page updates | |
| RSS | Nothing: just a URL | Titles, summaries, images, links |
| Bluesky | Any public account | Original posts, first image or video still, likes and replies |
| Mastodon | Any public account, on any server | Public original posts, first attachment, alt text |
Should you use one widget per network, or one for all of them?
Use one combined feed when the posts belong together and one per network when they do not. A homepage wall mixing Instagram photography with Google reviews reads as a single body of proof. A careers page showing LinkedIn next to Reels reads as a mistake.
- One feed, several networks: best for homepages, social walls and anywhere the argument is "look how much of this there is"
- One feed per network: best for product pages, careers pages and any place where the audience came for one specific thing
- The same curated feed can be embedded more than once, in different layouts, on different pages
- A plan's source limit counts connected accounts, not networks, so splitting a feed in two costs nothing
Why some networks are available now and others are not
Networks that read public data need a key, or nothing at all; networks that read your account need the platform's permission to exist. RSS, Bluesky, Mastodon, YouTube, Google Reviews and X fall in the first group and work today. Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn fall in the second, and no tool can skip that queue.
- RSS, Bluesky and Mastodon need nothing at all. RSS is an open format, and Bluesky and Mastodon serve public posts to anyone who asks, which is why they are the fastest sources to test with
- YouTube and Google Reviews read public data with a key on our side, so there is no app review to wait for and nothing for you to authorise
- X is the same idea on a meter: paste any public @handle, no sign-in, and every post collected draws on your monthly allowance, which is why it starts on Studio
- Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn require a reviewed app before they will serve a single post from your own account
- Every network page carries a chip saying exactly where that integration stands, and it is updated when the status changes rather than when it would be convenient
What a social media widget cannot do, on any network
No widget can show you content the platform does not serve to applications. That line is set by the network, identically for every tool on the market, and any product claiming otherwise is either scraping or describing something else.
- Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn feeds you do not administer
- Stories, which expire faster than most walls refresh
- Unlimited hashtag search: every network that offers it at all meters it hard
- Private accounts, private groups and direct messages, ever
- Historic posts beyond whatever window the platform's API exposes
Widgets, answered
Only if you want one. A single Vitraz feed can pull from every network you have connected and render as one widget, or you can keep each network in its own feed and embed them separately. The embed code is the same either way. It points at a feed, not at a network.
RSS, Bluesky and Mastodon, by a wide margin. Each needs one thing you can paste, a feed URL or a public handle, and nothing else: no API key, no platform approval, nobody signing in. They are the fastest way to see a real wall on your own site.
On some networks, yes. YouTube, X, Bluesky, Mastodon, RSS and Google Reviews read public data, so a public account or listing is enough. Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn only serve an account after its owner signs in.
It should not. The script is deferred and there is no iframe. The posts arrive already rendered and go into an open shadow root, so they are real, crawlable content in your page rather than a black box, and images inside the feed lazy-load.
We change with it, and you do nothing. That is the actual argument for a hosted widget over a homegrown script: platform APIs break on the platform's schedule, and absorbing that is the maintenance you are handing over.
Keep reading
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