I know this question has already come up and I know that it's against FB policy to obscure/cover the social plugin. What I'm really looking for is any kind of solution to the very legitimate problem of users accidentally unliking pages because the button was poorly designed.
Our team recently noticed some peculiar patterns with our FB page likes and unlikes. After investigating, we've come to the conclusion that many users who already liked our FB page are hitting the Like button on our webpage, not realizing that this is causing them to unlike the page.
The obvious solution is to detect if the user has already liked our FB page and hide the plugin if it's true but this is not allowed by FB policy. So what can be done to solve this problem?
Related
I'm wondering if this isn't just an issue with these individual's cookies or browser settings, but here's the issue:
I'm moderating a Facebook business page for a website that hosts contests (requiring a click-through to the site), and out of several thousand successful entries we're getting just a handful of users complaining that they clicked through to our contest entry page and the site prompted them to sign in to Facebook when they already were -or asked them to "like" the page, while displaying below an image that declares that they already have.
I'm not sure what to tell them, but I don't want to just ignore the problem. Is there anything I can do or suggest to them to make this right?
Update
I've been told that it might be the app permissions might be set incorrectly for these profiles and that they could maybe remove the app and try again. Does that sound right?
I am a PHP developer, but completely new to this Facebook stuff and am getting all confused. The whole Apps vs Pages vs Fan Pages terminology is driving me nuts. Please help!
My client's requirements:
1) Display Like button on a single web page
2) When Like button is clicked, content on the page is unlocked and displayed (PHP)
3) Future visits to the page detects that visitor already likes the page, and content remains unlocked (PHP)
4) All updates to web page profile on FB will show on Likers' news feed
My understanding is that the cleanest way of doing (3) above is to use the PHP SDK. But to do this, I need to create an app (to get the App ID). So I created an App. I 'liked' the App from my FB profile. Updates to my app are posted to my news feed. So far, so good.
However when I try and implement the PHP SDK, it only works if I authorize the App to my account first. Is there a way of avoiding this authorization step just for a simple "Like" (I ask because I didn't have to authorize anything when liking the app within FB)? If this authorization is unavoidable, are there any alternatives to Apps that would allow me to achieve the above requirements?
Ideally, I'd like to use just "Pages" to do this, and not Apps, but I believe I cannot achieve (2) and (3) with pages, correct (remembering everything needs to be server side, so no JavaScript showing and hiding layers etc)?
I would be grateful for any guidance.
Thanks.
So I'm assuming what we are talking about here is a Facebook tab - the 520 pixel wide applications that can go in Fan pages?
If not, you will not be able to make this happen without permissions. It sounds like that is what you're talking about, though.
Here's an example of an Facebook tab on the Coca Cola fan page:
In a tab, the PHP SDK will tell you if the user is a fan of the page (not of the app, of the page). You'll need to read the signed request - there will be a parameter there called Page, which tells you if the user is already a fan (see https://developers.facebook.com/docs/authentication/signed_request/). You get this without having to authorize.
I usually read all this and store whether the user is a fan in a boolean variable. Then later in my page I'll do something like this:
<?php if ($isFan):?>
Content for fans here
<?php else:?>
Content for non-fans here
<?php endif;?>
Keep in mind that it is only telling you if the user is a fan OF THAT PAGE - if you set up your app on a test page, for instance, it'll tell you if the user is a fan of that test page or not, NOT if the user is a fan of your app.
In order to read what a facebook user likes using the PHP SDK, you will need the user_likes permission. You may however, be able to hack something together by rendering a like button on your page somewhere and detecting the color of the button, meaning the user has liked the page. This may be problematic because of cross domain issues considering the like button is rendered as an iframe.
Best of luck!
For some things, you need an app. Like restricting access to content if the user has "Liked" something. You need custom code to do that. You don't need an app for a basic "Like" button, but you really can't get any stats on the Likes. You can link an app to a website, so that you can report on the content and referrals. If you go to http://www.facebook.com/insights/ you can link the app with a website so the insights/reporting are combined. Just click on the "Insights for your Website" button. It does require validation.
That said, your confusion is the norm. Apps, Pages and Fan Pages are almost the same thing. They are all referenced through numerical ID. There are subtle feature differences between Pages and App Pages. An app can be added to any Page if it is configured to do so. But you can't add a Page to another Page.
You can use FQL to query if a user is a fan of your app, instead of the Page you are currently on.
Facebook controls what gets shown in the news feed. Just because you post to the feed, doesn't mean it will show. However, if you are an admin of the Page and/or App, posts will always show in your feed.
I'm a web developer and i'm having problems using the "like it" button
I put the buttom on my site as a counter of votes of a special contest. People can only click the like buttom if they are fan of my Facebook page.
The problem is that people can't vote if they haven't public permissions on his facebook, cause i can't know if they are or not fans of my page.
Is there a solution?
if you rely on information that you are not certain that you can obtain then sadly there is no solution.
Since what you are doing is beyond a simple like button What you may want to try is open a facebook application and request from your users the user_likes permission. You can read more about it here. I have photo albums on the "highest privacy setting" - only me. Yet when I request a list of my photo albums through one of my applications (with the required permissions of course) I get back ALL of my albums.. This might have been a temporary issue that was solved - but in any case - I saw this behavior and I thought it might be relevant to this post :)
Additionally you should look at the Promotions Guidelines specifically this point :
You must not use Facebook features or functionality as a promotion’s registration or entry mechanism. For example, the act of liking a Page or checking in to a Place cannot automatically register or enter a promotion participant.
I had some problems with facebook on this issue - you are not allowed to require someone to "like" a page in order to participate in an activity that is not directly connected to that page.
From what I understand you are requireing people to like your page on facebook beofore voting on your site... If this IS the case then facebook might very well start taking action and closing your page/app.
I am developer of www.iloveskola.lv and I have created facebook login with API.
After user logs in with his facebook account he has opportunity to participate in voting game.
One question, 4 answers.
Each answer is facebook LIKE button.
When user press like button, LIKE content on facebook has been created automatically.
First 2-3 days its was working perfect, but now when user press button iframe content just blinks and nothing.
I checked this with mozilla(bug zilla) and saw following response:
for (;;);{"__ar":1,"payload":{"success":false,"show_error":true,"error_info":{"brief":"Invalid url","full":"URL could not be liked because it's been blocked.","errorUri":"\/connect\/connect_to_node_error.php?title=Invalid+url&body=URL+could+not+be+liked+because+it\u002527s+been+blocked.&hash=AQAh-oNvuhmlqYzH"}}}
For deep investigation you can try this system by yourself.
If our site is blocked want to hear explanation why this is happening.
If you were using Like buttons as a voting mechanism in a promotion (which is expressly against Facebook policy) it's quite likely users were marking the resulting stories as spam, removing the Like shortly afterwards, hiding it from their news feed, etc.
When you try to share a link and it fails, there's a link in the error message for contacting Facebook if you believe the block is incorrect.
Your site has been blocked, most likely because they deemed to be spam or breaking their terms of service regarding your contest rules. Contact their developer group to find out how to get it unblocked.
I have a website serving free mp3-downloads and I would like them to be only available for facebook fans of the fb-page of the website. The links are thus hidden unless the user is a fan.
I have reached partial functionality by subscribing to the 'edge.create' event, but this event is not fired when the like box is loaded and the page has already been liked.
I don't really know what the best way to do this is, or whether it's possible at all without user permission. Most information on facebook forums is horribly outdated and a lot of it is related to on-facebook facebook apps/tabs, which is not my case.
To clarify: my facebook like button is on my own domain, in my own code.
This is not possible without user permission. You need to ask the user for the user_likes permission as documented here.