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Facebook Social walkthrough

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Currently supported API versions:

  • Marketing API version 21
  • Graph API version 21.

You can configure and use the Facebook Social API integration within Data Integration. Data Integration supports various Facebook reports that let you pull data from Facebook pages, including private and public pages, and specific insights related to posts, videos, and feeds.

Pages

Each Facebook report is associated with one or more Facebook pages.

Viewing Facebook pages

To view the list of Facebook pages you own, click refresh after adding your Facebook connection.

You can leave the page selection empty if you want to pull data from all the pages your user owns.

Pulling data from non-owned pages

To pull data from Facebook pages that you do not own, you must manually add the relevant page_id.

After selecting the appropriate page(s), you can pull data for the selected pages.

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Page fields

Data can only be pulled from the fields available in Facebook's public pages, excluding private fields such as Best_page, Access_token, and others.

Facebook Social reports

Data Integration supports four types of Facebook reports:

  1. Feed Report
    • Returns data about the selected Facebook page feeds (Likes, Comments, Shares).
note

Data can be pulled from public Facebook pages or private pages that your Facebook account owns.
The public page data may have fewer fields due to Facebook privacy settings.
Also, Facebook limits data pulls to 200 calls per hour for pages you do not own. Exceeding this limit results in errors.

  1. Insights - Page

    • Returns data on Facebook page insight metrics such as Impressions, Clicks, and more.
    • Data can only be pulled from private pages owned by your Facebook account.
    • The metrics include reactions from other pages that shared a post, so the numbers can be higher than displayed in the UI. Use the "Feed Report" for UI-specific metrics.

  2. Insights - Post

    • Returns data on the posts of the selected Facebook page(s) such as Impressions, Clicks, and more.

  3. Insights - Video

    • Returns video insights for selected Facebook pages, including Impressions, Clicks, and more.
    • Video insights are aggregated across pages. If a video is posted on multiple pages, the insights will be the sum of all those pages.

Feed report

To pull data for the feed report:

  1. Select Metadata fields
    • Choose the metadata fields you want to include for each reporting level (Feed, Comments, Reactions).
    • Leave the input box empty to pull all available fields.

  1. Tagging or Hidden Posts
    Check the relevant boxes to include data on tagged or hidden posts at the bottom of the page.

The feed report will automatically include the total number of comments and reactions by type (For example, happy, sad, or like) within the selected date range.

Insights reports

For insights reports:

  1. Select Pages
    Choose the pages for which you want to retrieve insights.

  2. Select Metadata Fields
    Choose metadata fields relevant to the report level. For example, fields are specific to individual posts for post insights.

  3. Select Metrics
    Choose the metrics you want to measure (For example, Impressions, Views).

  4. Select Metrics Period
    Define the period for which metrics will be calculated (For example, Daily, Weekly).

  5. Additional Data
    Some reports offer additional data via checkboxes. For example, in the Insights - Posts report, you can include data from "Promotable" (dark) posts with regular posts.

Metrics for each report:

  • Metrics starting with page_* are for the Page Insights Report.
  • Metrics starting with post_* are for the Post Insights Report.
  • Metrics starting with post_video_* are for the Video Insights Report.

Post Fields Restrictions:
To extract post fields for a live video that has ended, you must have an Admin role on the post's page.

Fields that require an admin role for access include: description, name, object_id, source, and type.

Metrics

Select the metrics relevant to your insights reports. Common metrics include:

  • Impressions
  • Views
  • Clicks

Metrics period resolution

The Metrics Period Resolution defines the time frame for calculating your metrics.
For instance, selecting Daily for the Impressions metric returns daily results for the selected date range.

important

Some metrics may not work with the chosen Metrics Period Resolution. To learn more, refer to the Facebook Documentation topic.

Time period

You can choose the report time period for all types of Facebook Social Reports. You can select:

  • A custom date range (from a specific start to end date).
  • A predefined time period (Yesterday, Last Week, etc.).

time_period

Procedure

  1. Select the start and end date for the report.
  2. Leave the end date empty to pull data until the river runs.
  3. The start date will be automatically updated with each run.
  4. Choose the time zone offset to adjust the date to your local time zone if the end date is empty.
  5. Use Days back to specify how many days before the start date to pull data.
note

The start date will not be updated if a river run is unsuccessful unless you choose to advance it even on failure (not recommended).

Ignore errors for Accounts

You can enable the option to ignore errors for accounts. If an issue arises while generating a report for one or more accounts, the river will continue running without failure.

Facebook graph API rate limitation

The Facebook Graph API enforces rate limits to ensure fair usage across all users and applications. These rate limits differ depending on the access token type used, which can be at the user or application level.

User-level rate limits

Each user is assigned a specific rate limit for API calls, calculated over a rolling one-hour window. If a user exceeds the allotted number of requests, further requests will be blocked until the usage drops below the threshold. This ensures that users do not overwhelm the system and that resources are distributed among all users.

Application-level rate limits

The rate limit for applications is based on the number of active users. It is calculated as 200 requests per user per rolling hour and shared among all users. All users' total number of requests contributes to the application’s overall rate limit.

It is essential for applications to monitor and manage API calls to prevent hitting the application-wide limit.

Monitoring rate limits

You can track the current status of your rate limits using response headers in the API calls. One useful header is X-App-Usage, which provides real-time data on the percentage of the limit used. Monitoring these headers helps you stay aware of your API usage and adjust your request pacing accordingly.

Best practices to avoid rate-limiting disruptions

To avoid disruptions due to rate limiting, consider implementing the following best practices:

  • Manage request pacing: Distribute your API requests over time to ensure that they do not accumulate too quickly and exceed the rate limits.
  • Handle rate-limit responses: Set up your application to detect and handle rate-limit responses (such as HTTP status code 429), so it can retry the request once the limit window resets.
  • Use request queuing or throttling: Implement queuing or throttling mechanisms to control the rate at which API requests are sent, ensuring they stay within the allowable limits.

Impact on Data Integration river runs

Rate limits can also impact the duration of river runs in Data Integration. If the API requests exceed the rate limit, the process may pause until the next rate limit window is available. This pause can extend the overall time for a river run to complete. To minimize this impact, optimize API calls and follow the best practices.

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