[Guide] Facebook counter not updating/working: a step-by-step guide to creating token and updating settings

Overview

Easy Social Share Buttons for WordPress consist of a few possible update methods for reading share counter from Facebook. The default method we are using does not require authorization. But this method may not be stable enough. 

Here are the steps you need to complete to fix the Facebook counter problem.

Follow the Steps to Create Application Based Token for Facebook

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 Share 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 -> Share Counter Setup menu. But do not forget that 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.

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.