More and more users notice that their Facebook counter is not showing anymore. And that is a big problem for those that rely on social reputation based on the Facebook counter. There is a simple solution provided by Easy Social Share Buttons for WordPress that solves this – simple and easy.
Did you notice that your Facebook counters did not update anymore? In case you don’t you are lucky π!
Luckily there is a solution on just a few clicks. Read below how Easy Social Share Buttons for WordPress can help you. π
Starting a week ago Facebook encounters a problem with the public API. As a result of this if you are using public API you won’t get your values updated (increase). For your new posts, you will not see shares coming.
Before you start to panic you need to know that there is an alternative method is Easy Social Share Buttons for WordPress. This method uses a token key to update values. Using this method you can get your share counters back. But there is even more – your values will become bigger. That is because the authorized users get not just shares but also comments and reactions.
Show Facebook Counter Using Your Own Facebook Token – How to Generate
To generate a token key you need to follow the steps below and use our tool. For privacy and security, we do not automate that process with the login inside Facebook. Doing this manually ensure that no application will get access to your personal or business Facebook data. The tool for token uses only IDs to generate an access token – no data from the profile is read.
Step 1
Visit the Facebook Developer Center: https://developers.facebook.com/ and create a new application from the menu.
Step 2
Fill the application name and verify your email
Step 3
Visit the basic settings and fill the following information: Privacy Policy URL, Terms of Service URL, Category (Business and Pages is good to go). Optional you can select the domain name which app can use (to prevent unauthorized usage on other sites) – the App Domains field.
The changes above are required to make the application public accessible on the top of the developer center. By clicking on OFF it will go to green ON.
When you are ready with the public app press the Show button next to the secret. You need to reveal the application ID and secret to generate the required token.
Step 4
Open https://tools.creoworx.com/facebook/ and in the fields copy/paste the application ID and application secret and press the generate button. You will see the token ready to copy/paste inside plugin settings.
Update Facebook Counter Settings
Update Facebook Counter Access Point (Important)
This is the place where you need to put the generated Facebook Token.
To change the share counter update method, you need to visit in plugin settings Social Sharing -> Share Counters Setup -> Single Button Counter menu. But do not forget that if you decide to switch to API endpoint #2, you should generate and include an application based token (without that token the data will not appear). At this time you does not need to verify the application created for the website and it can run properly even in development mode.
Additional Changes Inside Settings for Share Counters
The changes mentioned below are not required but may help to improve the or speedup share counter update process.
Avoid using a too frequent share counter update
If you choose a small interval between updates, this may cause some of your posts to show zero shares when such are present. This happens because of the frequent update you fill out the quote for API access for the hour. And when this happens you can’t update the counter anymore. Try to keep the update counter with the biggest acceptable for your value.
You can change the frequency from the Share Counter Setup screen.
Enable Facebook Client Side Counter Update
You can also backup the update process if you are using the client side update for Facebook Share Counter option. But be aware that client side update will make an update call inside the client browser to receive the share numbers value.
Increase update period for older posts
The option will increase the time for updating older posts. A post becomes older for the plugin when pass two weeks from publish date. After the two weeks from publishing, the plugin will double the update period. When one month passes the plugin will double the period again. Example: if your update period is 6 hours, after 2 of publishing it will become 12 hours, and again after two more weeks it will become 1 day.
Clear Counter Last Update
This option will clear the current last update date for all posts. This will set up and immediate share counter update for posts.