Displaying Petfinder’s Adoptable Pet Scroller on a Facebook Page

Recently I received an email from a Social Animal reader who had successfully placed a Paypal button on her organization’s Facebook page using my tutorial. She wrote:

“I just added a Paypal Donate Button to our Facebook page thank to your tutorial! I was curious to know your thoughts on adding the petfinder code for adoptable animals on a facebook page. Is this even possible and would you do it the same way you added that Paypal Donate Button code?”

Her idea is a very good one; however, it is not possible in the same way you use the paypal donate button. Facebook does not allow the use of Iframes in the FBML application, and that is how Petfinder exports the pets for adoption lists.

There are a couple of problems here—one, iframe is a VERY outdated way of displaying HTML information, and I’m dismayed that Petfinder still uses it. I hope their developers are working with them on a new way (or at least new options in addition to the iframe) to display and pull information. I would (and have) recommend RSS to them. I am hoping to work with Petfinder to develop a solution and of course, I’ll keep you posted here if anything comes along!

The other bad thing is that even with the FBML app (the way you put the donate button on your page) it’s still not a great solution, because the button is not highly visible. What we need is to be able to put it ON our page, where it’s more visible, like in the sidebar!

There are a couple of ways to do this, but it requires the knowledge of some fairly advanced HTML. I am working on putting together a module, or a pre-made script for you to just insert. I CAN put together a tutorial for advanced users, but I’d like to find a way to make it available to beginners as well, because as we have learned and are learning more every day, Facebook is a HUGELY valuable tool for fundraising online! In fact, nonprofits (there are about 600,000 on Facebook) raise around $150,000 each WEEK on Facebook alone! Pretty impressive numbers.

The good news is that I’m working on coding solutions for both these problems. Facebook is pretty friendly to javascript, so I’m working on a javascript method for adding the petfinder or Petango display list to your facebook page.

As soon as I get this done, I’ll post it here, and you guys can be my “beta testers!” Sound good?

Keep those questions coming, and I’ll email you back and post them on the blog so everyone can learn!

Get in Touch!

I'm available via most social media, so drop me a line! I'll answer your questions and I really look forward to hearing from you and helping if I can!

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