Can you geotarget a tab on a Facebook Page? - facebook

I have a client that needs to have an application installed on a Facebook page tab but have the tab only appear to certain markets. I know how this can be done when posting comments on the pages wall but can this be done for the tabs?
Thanks in advance!
Justin

You can add restrictions to your application which will prevent the tab for that application from being visible to people who don't meet the restrictions (certain country or certain age). This has a side effect that people who aren't logged into facebook also can't see the tab until they log in.
Facebook recently posted examples on setting application restrictions with the graph api - https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/574
I have a blog post from earlier this year that talks about this a little bit - http://dev.beaffinitive.com/facebook-iframe-tabs-for-pages-and-app-restri
Also, I posted sample php application to github - https://github.com/Affinitive/FacebookRestrictedTab

We've talked to a Facebook rep about this, their response was that you have to handle the geo-targeting of the tab through a 3rd party developer or do it yourself. Facebook does not support geo-targeting the tabs natively at this time. Starbucks and Coca-Cola were listed as examples of companies using geo-targeting in their tabs.
No idea when http://ekstreme.com/geotargeting was published, but it seems like a good guide to setting up very basic geo-targeting based on IP if you want to do it yourself.

Related

Facebook app id for website social plugins

I have like/share buttons on my website and am not currently using an appid. Finding information on whether this is a necessity for the above configuration is difficult to confirm. When going through the Facebook app "create" forms, I'm really confused by a lot of the requirements as it seems to be more focused around actual apps rather than websites, which login via fb etc.
In the past I have created an app for one of my other websites and I don't believe there was any verification/submission process at this point (about 2-3 years ago). Reviewing my old app configuration now I can see that it is not "live" - does anyone know whether Facebook implemented this submission process in the last couple of years, and then de-activated any live apps that were created prior to this?
I now want to setup a new app for my new website and I'm unsure what the different 'action types' mean and what I would need to simply use like/share buttons on the website. Could someone give me a quick run down of what I'd need and what they are?
Any other info/tips people can provide would be greatly appreciated. I'm finding that the like/share DO still work without the app, but sometimes the share button doesn't work properly (I have a feeling this is something to do with the app).
Thanks
If you are just using the Social Plugins, you don't need to have a Facebook App ID.
If you want more integration, it will be required. Creating an App ID is like registering your App, wether an iOS or Android App or just a website, so that you can make Graph API calls for it.
The easiest way to register your website is to go the quickstart: https://developers.facebook.com/quickstarts/?platform=web (or https://developers.facebook.com/apps). There you can type a name and follow the steps.
You can then follow the "Sharing best practices" (https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/best-practices#tags) on how to use the App ID. For example, by including an fb:app_id meta tag on your pages.
There is a review process, since last April, but that is only needed if you use permissions for your App. If you just use the plugins, that is not needed.
Can you explain more what is exactly not working?
Update
The time you create a page the Facebook crawler does not know yet what the Opengraph data for that one is. This will happen after the first share, but if you want to ensure it is correct from the first share on, you can force a re-scrape.
This section explains how that works:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/opengraph/using-objects#update
When an app triggers a scrape using an API endpoint This Graph API
endpoint is simply a call to:
POST /?id={object-instance-id or object-url}&scrape=true

How to get number of facebook likes from an individual app?

I've done some searching and can't seem to find an answer to this. I'd like to find out how many Facebook likes came from a specific app and not the overall fan page itself.
Set up:
I have a "fan page" for a company that I manage. This company runs promotions from time to time and usually do so through a FB app that is attached to the fan page. These apps vary in type, but usually are just a page tab app hosted on heroku with a like gate.
Obviously, a like on the like gate results in a like for the fan page. Is there any way to find out how many likes came from that specific like gate / page tab app? FB Insights shows "where likes came from" but nothing I've found lists individual apps.
Thanks in advance.
Even though from page_fans_by_like_source_unique you can get a lot of metrics, there isn't currently one to differentiate between tabs.
The approach I'm currently using, is tracking on my app side, saving the information into a database, because both like and unlike events refresh the app iframe, with a new signed_request. The logic is the one described by #dleavitt here
Sources: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/insights/#like_sources

Facebook UIActionLinks on Facebook app elements

I'm currently developing a Facebook app and I came across a "weird" client request. The app itself is pretty simple. The user can write a story. This story is then saved into a custom database and then displayed on the app's front page along with all the other stories. The request from the client is that we - for each story - implement the "standard" Facebook links which normally go beneath a Facebook wall post (Like, comment, timing). Is this possible and if yes, how on earth....?
I've been reading a great deal about the new custom Actionlinks which can be applied to an app - but this seems more like custom functionality and not the basic Facebook functionality. It also seems like there are no Comment and timing....
Well any answer is much appreciated - also if the answer is: Go with the normal Social plugin LIKE/SEND/COMMENT functions :-)
Thanks very much
/Jan

What's the difference between a Facebook app and a tab?

I want to add a link to my Facebook page that will open new information within my page. Not a website, but information from a scoring program my bowlers use. I'm not a programmer by any means and have no programmer on staff I am trying to teach myself these things as I go along.
First of all, I have no idea if what I want to add is called a "tab" or an "app." I can't really seem to find a good explanation as to what the difference is. They both kind of sound the same to me. I've tried to figure out how to add both and have found a lot of great websites and information on Facebook that kind of leads you through the process.
The problem is all of them seem to expect me to already know what things like, JavaScript, canvas urls, FBML, etc... and I don't. So I'm getting tripped up on the steps even as I'm trying to work my way through the steps. I guess I'm kind of looking for a page entitled something like "Facebook developing for ignorant people."
I really appreciate any help you can give me.
Please forgive my ignorance here but I have searched and searched for how to do this and just keep coming up against a wall.
What are Facebook Tabs?
The tabbed structure multiplies your possibilities. Tabs help keep Pages organized so people know where to go to get different pieces of information. The Wall tab is for dynamic content, the Info tab has static information, the
Photos tab contains photos albums and Fan photos, etc
What are Facebook Apps?
Apps on Facebook are web apps that are loaded in the context of Facebook in what we refer to as a Canvas Page.
What is a Canvas Page?
A Canvas Page is quite literally a blank canvas within Facebook on which to run your app.
Now where you may have been confused is that you have ability for your app to be used within the context of a Facebook Page via a tab. So it is a custom tab
So now to what you want
I want to add a link to my Facebook page that will open new information within my page.
You want to add a new piece of information to the page. Is it static content. If it is just the rules of the scoring program, then you can use a Tab. Previously one was able to accomplish this using a simple FBML tab. Put Facebook has phased this out.
FBML will no longer be supported as of January 1, 2012
Two quick ways to deal with your problem
Use the Info tab description to place the information
Search for apps that offer this functionality for example TabPress
The longer way (long term) would be to follow this guide and bite the bullet for learning web hosting and development
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/appsonfacebook/pagetabs/
Any more information in terms of languages, and steps depends on exactly what you would like to do. I am not really sure what you mean by showing the bowling information. For the moment I am thinking it is just static information. So all you need to know is how to use the following HTML tags
html
head
body
p

Why is my Facebook app in a Page Tab not appearing to non-admin users?

I have a Facebook app running in a Page Tab (the tab of a Facebook Page for an organization). The Page Tab URL (and Secure Page Tab URL) points to a URL on my own server which holds a PHP page that contains an iframe of a Google Calendar.
The app works perfectly fine when I open the Page using the admin account (both http and https). But when I open the Page using the user account of someone who has 'Liked' the Page, the app does not appear at all (both http and https). Any suggestions? Thank you.
Check if the app is in sandbox mode, in the Advanced section of the Settings here:
https://developers.facebook.com/apps
I believe that is the problem.
You may overlooked the "sandbox" setting that should be "disabled", this could be one explanation as per the answer above. If this have not answered to your question, than you may find another explanation here:
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/appcenter/guidelines/
Basically, if your application doesn't do anything it will probably not be approved and it will not be visible to nobody, except you - the developer. There are other issues, like copyrighted infringement and so on... please read.
(Also, just in case you are interested, it should be installed by more than 30 times, I guess different persons, in order to be "searchable").