Putting PayPal on your Facebook

Note: I put this on my Facebook page quite a while ago, sharing it with my friends, and I figured that I might as well put it here too. 

There are two ways to do this.

The super easy way (that's the technical name for it) is to use a link like this --
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_xclick&business=[your-email-address]&amount=[amount]&currency_code=[currency-code]&item_name=[your+item+name] -- just be sure to replace the information inside the brackets with your information.

Your link should look something like https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_xclick&business=rob@mailinator.com&amount=9999.99&currency_code=USD&item_name=Awesomeness

If you have spaces in the item name, replace them with a + (e.g. Awesome+advice+from+a+cool+guy), if you're using Yen (instead of dollars) there isn't a decimal point.

You should also be aware that this method has a couple of drawbacks. One drawback is that it exposes your email address. That's not necessarily a terrible thing, but you must keep in mind that the email address is one of the pieces of information someone needs to access your PayPal account, so keep your password extra safe. The other drawback is that the preview for the link is going to say something like "Cookies not enabled" and it's generally not going to look pretty. On the other hand, this is the super easy way, so stop complaining.

The other way (that's not the technical name for it) is to use a hosted button. Creating a hosted button is more complicated, but when you post the link it should look a little better, and it won't expose your email address. It basically works the same as far as posting the information as a link - but the link will look something like https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=[your-button-id] (notice the lack of the amount and email address).

In order to generate this link, you'll need to go to PayPal, sign in and go through the Merchant Services tab to generate a button. Make sure in Step 2 the checkbox to "Save button at PayPal" is checked (it should be by default).

After you've clicked the Create Button button, it will take you to a page with a window and two tabs above it (one tab should say Website and the other should say Email). The Website tab should be white-ish and the Email tab should be gray-ish and the window should contain HTML (text that looks similar to what you see when you view the source of a web page). Click the Email tab and the window will switch from HTML to a URL. Copy that URL and paste it into Facebook just like you would any other link.

That's it.

Both of these methods involve pasting a link into your Timeline. There's really not a way to put a button in your cover photo or modify your page to add a PayPal button to the top -- at least not that I know of. Of course you could put the link in other places, like your info section, but mostly you'll just have to post the link and then re-post it later...at least until I can figure out how to do it some other way.