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Documentation for the Follow Button

This page is an implementation guide and technical documentation for the “Follow on XING” plugin. The plugin provides an easy way for users to become subscribers of a XING news or company page and start receiving page updates in their network news.

Table of contents

Get started

Getting started with the plugin is easy. All it takes is two simple steps:

  1. Create a new plugin with the generator. You don't need a developer account for that.
  2. Add the generated code snippet to your webpage.

Congrats! Visitors to your site can now follow your XING page and stay up to date with the information you make available there.

How it works

The plugin is a small JavaScript library that you can add to your site. It allows users to become followers of a news or company page on XING directly from your webpage.

Here's a visualisation of what using the plugin looks like for users.

Simplified flow

After clicking on the plugin button, users will be asked to log in with their XING credentials if they are not already logged in. Once identified, they will be added to the list of followers. The button label will change to “Following” and, if the button design with a counter has been chosen, the number in the counter will increase to reflect that a follower has been added.

If you are using the Share Button you can configure it to show the Follow plugin after a successful share. See more information.

Hello world example

Below is a simple example of a site where users can follow a news page on XING.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <title>Follow a news page on XING Example</title>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
</head>
<body>

  <!-- Place the plugin setup information -->
  <div data-type="xing/follow" data-url="https://www.xing.com/news/pages/marketing-werbung-44">
  </div>

  <!-- Place the script for loading the plugin library  -->
  <script>(function (d, s) {
    var x = d.createElement(s),
      s = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
    x.src = "https://www.xing-share.com/plugins/follow.js";
    s.parentNode.insertBefore(x, s);
  })(document, "script");</script>

</body>
</html>

Plugin configuration

To generate a plugin, please provide the following information in the generator:

Field Description
XING page URL mandatory The URL of the XING page to be followed when clicking on the Follow Button.
Language optional The language of the button that will define the language of its label and hover text.
Style optional Defines how the button looks.

The plugin script consists of two pieces of code: the first one is the button markup while the second loads the library.

You can add multiple button markups (i.e. buttons) on a page. You can either configure your button in the generator and use the generated snippet in your code, or change it to meet your needs as described in the Properties section below. 

<div data-type="xing/follow" data-url="https://www.xing.com/news/pages/44">
</div>

The script for loading the library doesn’t need to be placed right after the plugin setup. It only needs to be added once, even if you have several buttons on your page.

<script>
  ;(function (d, s) {
    var x = d.createElement(s),
      s = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
    x.src = "https://www.xing-share.com/plugins/follow.js";
    s.parentNode.insertBefore(x, s);
  })(document, "script");
</script>

Properties

Name Default Description
data-url mandatory The URL of the page to be followed. Must be a valid XING news or company page URL.
data-counter optional No counter Position of the counter
right
data-lang optional en Language of the button
en English
de German

Error handling

The messages are displayed in the JavaScript developer console.

The Follow Button is not configured correctly as the URL is missing.

This message is displayed when the URL parameter is missing. Make sure that you configured it in the data-url property in the button markup.

The Follow Button is not configured correctly as the URL is invalid.

This message is displayed when the value of the data-url property is present but invalid. This value should be set to a valid news or company page on XING.

Should you encounter a problem using the plugin and if the documentation does not help you solve it, please send an e-mail to social-plugins@xing.com. We will get back to you as soon as possible.

Data privacy

XING places utmost importance to data privacy and security. Accordingly, data privacy comes baked into the “Follow on XING” plugin. The follow.js library is loaded from a domain, which is special in that it has been configured to be as privacy-friendly as possible: until a webpage visitor clicks the plugin, no information is sent to XING which can be traced back to the user.

Supported browsers

  • Chrome current version
  • Firefox 31 ESR and current version
  • Internet Explorer 8 to current version
  • Opera current version
  • Safari for MacOS/iOS current version
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