facebook graph API batch request usage
If you have or managing any facebook page, chances are you might be using faebook’s graph API. It comes with lots of flavors of languages like Java, PHP, Javascript.
Ok you know about that, this post is not about that. If you want to see how to make a post to facebook through graph API, look at this post https://gullele.com/using-facebook-api-post-articles-php/
This post is about making multiple posts to Facebook page.
Why would I need batch requests
Imagine you have 20 blog articles you want to post to facebook. If you are not using batch, then it means you are sending 20 post requests to facebook. And as you can imaging it is easy to hit the limit easily. Facebook will stop you from bombarding their site.
When you are using batch, you have only one request, holding all 20 posts. Yup, that is it. One request vs 20. Now you know why you have to use that.
How to send multiple blog posts or other posts to Facebook page at once
If you follow the above link I referenced, you will have an idea on how single post is doing. I will just continue on that example class and will add just one more method to handle batch request.
The main idea is, each blog or whatever post has to be an object of Request. And you will send all those requests wrapped in one and send it.
/**
* Send batch request to FB than a single one
* @param $post_data
*/
private function batchPost(array $post_data, $token)
{
/*
* In the case of the batch request, each has to be an object of request. And all those can be
* send as one big request.
*/
$batch_response = [];
$requests = [];
foreach ($post_data as $id => $data) {
$requests[$id] = $this->facebook->request('POST', '/me/feed', $data);
}
$batch_response = $this->facebook->sendBatchRequest($requests, $token);
return $batch_response;
}
In the above example, the method will be accepting $post_data
as a parameter. If a post example is considered, a single $data
will look like
$data = [
'link' => "https://gullele.com/link-goes-here",
'message'=>"how to make batch request in facebook api",
'title'=>"Making Multiple Requests in Facebook",
'description' => 'In this article I will show you how you can make multiple blog posts to Facebook page with one single request.',
];
Then the line with $this->facebook->request will create a request object and add it as part of request array. Also mind the $id
, each should have unique key in the $request array.
Then Facebook will send you back the response with post id and other lots of information that you might want to keep it for later reference like to get metrics on the post – how many likes, impressions, shares.. which will help you to improve in the long run.
Let me know if you have any questions or other methods.