Step by Step Guide to Getting Comments from post Using Facebook API

Facebook is one of the widely-used platforms by marketers around the world. An average American spends 31 minutes everyday on Facebook and engages with different content on the platform. In this regard, utilizing the power of Facebook comments unlocks valuable insights into audience sentiment for marketers. However, the complexity of the Facebook Graph API can create challenges for newbie developers and marketers. In this guide, we will check how Phyllo offers a highly user-friendly platform to discover a streamlined approach to extracting and leveraging comments. 

What is the Facebook Graph API? 

With more than 2.9 billion active users worldwide, the Facebook platform offers a built-in user base to help you to extract data and gain full access to the features on the platform. In this regard, Facebook graph API acts as a smart interface between your applications and the vast amount of users data available on Facebook.

Over 3 million websites are actively leveraging Facebook graph API to programmatically interact with Facebook. From fetching comments on posts to publishing new content on the page, Facebook Graph API empowers you to do everything through a single application. It can even manage your advertisement campaigns seamlessly to drive visitors actually interested in your products or service.

However, without proper technical know-how knowledge, the Facebook Graph API can be quite challenging to deal with. For instance, you should know the specific API endpoints to target with your written code to successfully execute the authentication process.  This often challenges developers and marketers with no programming experience. 

That’s where Phyllo comes in. 

Simplifying Access to Facebook Data with Phyllo 

Phyllo brings a universal API to access comprehensive and verified creator data across 100+ social media platforms, including Facebook, in real time. Phyllo APIs easily integrate across with a few lines of code to help you build a robust influencer marketing application to easily measure your Facebook campaign success. Now, you don’t have to update yourself with Facebook’s ever-changing data access protocols, which obviously saves you time and frustration. 

Access Verified Facebook Creator Insights 

Phyllo comes with a robust suite of Facebook-specific data points to give you a complete picture of creators data on demand. 

Activate and access verified data such as:

Profile Data: Get to know the creator, including their Facebook bio, location, and any relevant details they choose to share publicly 

Content Feeds: Track their latest Facebook posts, including photos, video, and live streams. Analyze publishing frequency, content formats, and engagement levels. 

Audience Demographics: Understand the followers of your target creators by analyzing their audience data on age, location, interests, and demographics. 

Content Performance: Track how well each post performs in terms of number of views, likes, shares, comments. Identify high-performing content themes and formats. 

Tailored Features for Facebook Data 

Phyllo goes beyond offering you basic creator data. You can unlock more creator data such as: 

Facebook Comment Retrieval: Understand audience sentiment of the creator better by analyzing comments on the posts. Understand audience feedback, and identify brand mentions in real time for developing tailored content strategy. 

Creator’s Income Data: Phyllo provides you data about creators and their income streams across different mediums on Facebook, such as in-stream ads, fan subscriptions, branded content, stars, and paid online events. 

Benefits of Using Phyllo for Facebook Creators 

Effortless data access: get an easy access to a creator’s Facebook data with automated updates at regular intervals 

Data-driven decisions: evaluate creditworthiness of a creator across different metrics for partnership in just minutes 

Content optimization: analyze content performance to understand what resonates with the audience and tailor future strategies 

Campaign measurement: track the success of Facebook marketing campaigns with all the power of Facebook data at your fingertips 

How to Set Up the Facebook API with Phyllo

Configure Phyllo for Facebook API Access 

Step 1: Grants Account Connection  

Creators are first prompted to connect their Facebook accounts in your apps to showcase their profile and analytics data. 

Step 2: Phyllo's SDK kicks in 

Once the creator choses to connect the Facebook account, Phyllo’s SDK takes over and displays Phyllo’s data security and privacy guidelines. They describe how information is handled for transparency. 

Step 3: Creators Select Platforms

The beauty of Phyllo is that creators can connect multiple platforms besides Facebook. They simply select the desired platforms from the available options. Let’s say, the creator decides to move ahead with only Facebook. 

Step 4: Connect the Chosen Platform 

After selecting Facebook, creators proceed with Facebook’s secured login process. This ensures their credentials are handled safely by Facebook.  

Step 5: Creators Read the Disclosure 

Before granting access, creators get a clear disclosure of the type of information the API will access from their Facebook account. This empowers them to make informed decisions about data sharing. 

Step 6: Account Connection Gets Successful 

With consent from creators, the API securely transmits the requested data to your application. The data exchange takes place only after creators explicitly agree. Creators can choose to either continue to your app or connect another account.  

Fetching Comments from a Facebook Post

Now that the Phyllo API has access to the creator Facebook data, let’s see how you can utilize it to retrieve comments from a specific Facebook post. 

Here is a step-by-step guide: 

Step 1: Identify the Facebook Post ID

Every Facebook post comes with a unique ID. You can trace this ID in the post URL itself. Look for a string of numbers following “[post type]/” in the URL, as shown below. 

[https://www.facebook.com/reel/1385620485466924]

Here the post id is 1385620485466924

Step 2: Use Phyllo’s API Explorer 

Phyllo provides a user-friendly API explorer within its platform. You can use this tool to create API requests visually without writing complex codes. Go to the API explorer and locate the endpoint for retrieving comments. Phyllo offers clear documentation for each endpoint, explaining the required parameters. 

Step 3: Construct the API Request 

Within the API explorer, you’ll need to specify the following query parameters: 

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• from_date: comments published after a specific date (YYYY-MM-DD)
• limit: the number of comments to be returned from min 1 to max 100. The default value is 10. 
• offset: the number of objects to skip for pagination. 
• to_date: comments published on or before a specific date (YYYY-MM-DD)
• account_id: unique ID of the creator 
• content_id: unique ID of the Facebook post 

Once you’ve configured all the required parameters, simply send it through Phyllo API. Phyllo will handle the communication with the Facebook Graph API and return the retrieved comments data in a structured format.  

Parsing and Analyzing Comments Data

The retrieved data will contain the following details about the comments:

• Comment text
• Comment published date
• Commenter username
• Commenter display name
• Commenter id
• Commenter profile URL 
• Number of likes on the comment 
• Number of replies on the comment  

Your application can then parse and analyze this data to gain valuable insights into audience sentiment, identify top contributors, or track engagement trends. 

Sometimes, Facebook might return comments in pagination form. You’ll receive a limited set of comments per request. Facebook divides the extensive data sets into smaller sections called “pages.” This helps the platform increase the load on its servers from developers. Phyllo Facebook API can streamline pagination with ease. You can first request comments on a Facebook post using the Phyllo API with a cursor or access token. After that, you can repeatedly use the latest cursor to load a few more comments.

Best Practices for Facebook API Comment Retrieval With Phyllo 

Working with Phyllo is a breeze. However, following these tips can help you optimize your workflow even better. 

Plan Your Needs

Before extracting comments, identify the value of parameters you require to input. Do you need 10 objects (by default) or more? Are you interested in comments received after a certain date or till a certain date since publication? A quick overview of your requirements can help you set appropriate values of parameters required to extract data in one go. 

Use Appropriate Modes

Phyllo’s Universal API can work in three different modes and each mode requires separate API credentials. For instance, you can use the Sandbox mode to use random credentials to log into Facebook platforms and staging mode to test your integration with real accounts. When you’re ready to go live with your integration, you can use the Production server. 

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You can learn more about the modes by following this guide. 

Leverage Rate Limits

Facebook Graph API has certain rate limits to prevent overwhelming their servers. Phyllo adheres to these rate limits to ensure a single API Facebook user is not hogging up the resources. However, be mindful of how frequently you request data through Phyllo. It is advisable to make a reasonable number of requests to avoid breaching the rate limits. Phyllo’s this guide will provide you guidance on recommended request intervals. 

Error Handling and Logging

While Phyllo simplifies the process, unforeseen manual errors may still impair the process, such as using invalid post IDs, and exceeding API rate limits. It is imperative to implement robust error handling mechanisms within your application to gracefully handle such potential issues. Keep a log of API requests and responses to monitor activity and troubleshoot any problems that may arise. 

Troubleshooting Common Issues With Facebook Graph API (Without Phyllo)

While Phyllo simplifies comment retrieval, directly using the Facebook Graph API requires more technical expertise. Here is how to troubleshoot common problems you might encounter: 

Invalid Graph API Request: 

Using an incorrect endpoint or a faulty Facebook ID may result in an invalid Graph API request. Verify that all required parameters (like access token) are included with proper formatting. 

Authentication Errors: 

Ensure your access token is valid and has the necessary permissions to access comments (e.g., “public profile” and “user_posts”). If the access token expires, you have to generate it again. 

Getting Started with Phyllo for Enhanced Facebook Integration

Phyllo’s Universal API is all you need to bypass challenges of working with the Facebook API Graph. Imagine the time you would save on hiring resources or to write the code by yourself for data formatting and authentication. This valuable saved time can be utilized for other productive measures. For instance, the reduced development time can be utilized for analyzing real-time comments to ensure the creator is not tampering or hiding genuine comments about the post. If the creator has linked more than one social media account, Phyllo ensures a consistent data format across different platforms for a simplified data analysis. 

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