Social promotion needs more explanation

[jair101]

I had some issues with Facebook promotion and the information here or in the ACP was not useful at all. Somehow, I think I got it to work, but it was a lot of trial and error, which is not something that I particularly like, because my community Facebook page is not a terrain for experiments. So here are few of the key characteristics I found and I hope someone can confirm it sounds correct:

1. For the initial setup you need to have Facebook Login enabled so you can connect your forum admin account with the account that owns the page on which you are going to share (assuming this is your community fb page). I was worried that to use the promotion I need to have fb login for everyone, which I don't want at this point. It turned out this is not true. You can enable facebook login, connect your profile and then disable it. Your profile will stay connected. 

2. Initially it seems that the app required two additional permissions - manage_pages and publish_pages. Those permissions require review from facebook, which requires you to create some screencast, overall it is a pain in the A. I still don't know what kind of screencast fb needs or how these permissions work, but somehow I managed to do it without getting these permissions and I can promote to my fb page both from my account and from other admin accounts that don't have linked fb profiles. I have no idea if at some point FB might ban me for bypassing their restrictions...

3. When you promote items and you add pictures to them, the item is shared as an album. This can be both good or bad. Good because albums are eye catching. Bad, because the link to the content in your community is not embedded and is just raw link. I am not sure which will attract more interest, but it would be nice if this is explained beforehand. If you want your link to embed in fb, don't add any images during promotions.

Ideally, it would be nice if IPS can create a guide about this feature. What I wrote here is purely based on experience and speculation, it would be nice if it can be confirmed. 

[Netherlord]

I am on my 8th submission. Last attempt. The promote function is basically unusable unless you can trick facebook to let it slide.

The guidelines they have for review are breached by the autofill in every case. Can't get it past them.

Oh well. It's annoyed me enough.

[jair101]

7 hours ago, Netherlord said:

I am on my 8th submission. Last attempt. The promote function is basically unusable unless you can trick facebook to let it slide.

The guidelines they have for review are breached by the autofill in every case. Can't get it past them.

Oh well. It's annoyed me enough.

Somehow I managed it without approval. When you go to the social promotion in ACP first you link your fb account, with your admin profile, thats obvious. Then it asks for the additional permissions. Now I am not clear what exactly I did here, but when I went to the Social promotion section later, my profile pic was showing and it was asking on which page I want to publish the promoted content. I gave it a try and it worked. 

What worries me if it leads to banning my personal account (that owns the page) and/or the page itself. 

[Netherlord]

2 hours ago, jair101 said:

Somehow I managed it without approval. When you go to the social promotion in ACP first you link your fb account, with your admin profile, thats obvious. Then it asks for the additional permissions. Now I am not clear what exactly I did here, but when I went to the Social promotion section later, my profile pic was showing and it was asking on which page I want to publish the promoted content. I gave it a try and it worked. 

What worries me if it leads to banning my personal account (that owns the page) and/or the page itself. 

That's because you have testing permissions. However use it a lot and I imagine they will block your fbapp.

[jair101]

29 minutes ago, Netherlord said:

That's because you have testing permissions. However use it a lot and I imagine they will block your fbapp.

OK, that makes sense now. By the way, how long does it take for the review process?

[Netherlord]

42 minutes ago, jair101 said:

OK, that makes sense now. By the way, how long does it take for the review process?

depends. my first was 14 hours. then second 30 minutes, third an hour, etc etc 8th attempt is a day and a half in.. ignoring me now they are..

[jair101]

Look what I found here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-login/review/how-to-submit

Quote

You do not need to submit your app if it will only be used by you or by a reduced number of people. Any account listed in the Roles tab in your App Dashboard, such as admins, developers and testers, can access all permissions and generate a user or page access token.

So I believe that since only my user will use the app and I am the developer of the app, then I don't need to submit the app for review. 

[Netherlord]

8 hours ago, jair101 said:

Look what I found here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-login/review/how-to-submit

So I believe that since only my user will use the app and I am the developer of the app, then I don't need to submit the app for review. 

I heard back. Got the publish_actions permission now. Ignore the other 2 needed for promoting! IF you keep the feature staff only they allow you to just add facebook accounts to the app developers list and that will allow usage without need for the permissions.

The guy I dealt with said that is all you need to do... the publish_actions  is easy to get. The other two impossible with the autofill. Alas you do not need to get permissions for them  if staff only. And I imagine everyone will be setting them to staff only. IF so then its as easy as adding the facebook account in the app settings. Voila I am happy. Sharing in case others need to know this stuff!

[pesci]

I use Hootsuite for social promotion and it is well worth the price. 

Third parties who specialize in one area often times do things better than IPS. Thats a good thing. Let IPS concentrate on making the best community possible and not how to promote it on other websites. 

[Joy Rex]

5 hours ago, pesci said:

I use Hootsuite for social promotion and it is well worth the price. 

Third parties who specialize in one area often times do things better than IPS. Thats a good thing. Let IPS concentrate on making the best community possible and not how to promote it on other websites. 

How does (if at all) Hootsuite integrate with IPS?

I think that's the point here - while some don't mind using disparate products to run their organisations, others prefer a "under one roof" solution, where the majority of their promotion work can be done from a central source (in this case, their site or forum). Less technical users also would prefer the "one and done" approach, although from the sounds of things, IPS' approach to Facebook promotion may need some more documentation/refinement.

[ADKGamers]

59 minutes ago, Joy Rex said:

How does (if at all) Hootsuite integrate with IPS?

I think that's the point here - while some don't mind using disparate products to run their organisations, others prefer a "under one roof" solution, where the majority of their promotion work can be done from a central source (in this case, their site or forum). Less technical users also would prefer the "one and done" approach, although from the sounds of things, IPS' approach to Facebook promotion may need some more documentation/refinement.

Agreed

We've used hootsuite but do prefer keeping things as simple and having them under one roof if possible based on feedback when we've used hootsuite.  More documentation on the Facebook promotion process would also be great to see as it appears that right now it's hit or miss for people in terms of how they complete it and the steps that are taken. 

[Matt]

If it just you (the owner of the Facebook developer's app) then you don't need review.

You can just link your account, then request the permissions via the Invision Community ACP. You'll get a dialog asking for permissions with a notice saying it's in testing mode but the permissions will be granted because Facebook understands you are the app owner, thus you get the permissions.

I have not heard of Facebook closing apps if you use it a lot in testing mode. 

You only need the review when you are requesting permissions from non-app admin Facebook users which in most cases will not be the case.

[jair101]

37 minutes ago, Matt said:

If it just you (the owner of the Facebook developer's app) then you don't need review.

You can just link your account, then request the permissions via the Invision Community ACP. You'll get a dialog asking for permissions with a notice saying it's in testing mode but the permissions will be granted because Facebook understands you are the app owner, thus you get the permissions.

I have not heard of Facebook closing apps if you use it a lot in testing mode. 

You only need the review when you are requesting permissions from non-app admin Facebook users which in most cases will not be the case.

Thanks for confirming that, Matt, really appreciate it.

Maybe you can change the wording in ACP or in the guide here to make this explicit. As you see, it was not only me confused by this. And while the post sharing can be used by many users, I can't see how facebook promotions can be used by someone else then the account who is page admin. I will take a wild guess that many people stop at trying the feature the moment the sign for the extra permissions is shown. I almost gave up at that point, which would have been a shame as it is one of the more creative features in 4.2.

[George Hutton]

Is there a beginners guide on how to do this? I'm trying to connect my forum to FB but I can't even understand the first post in this thread.

Is there a reason this is so complicated? Or the answers seem to be purposely hidden?