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Facebook Pages API

Comments and @mentions

This guide explains how to comment on a Facebook Page post or comment on a Facebook Page post and @mention or tag a specific person or Page who has published a post on your Page or commented on a Page post using the Pages API from Meta.

Before you start

This guide assumes you have read the Overview and the Posts guide for the Facebook Pages API.

Permissions

For a person who can perform tasks on the page, you will need to implement Facebook Login on your app to ask for the following permissions and receive a Page access token:

  • pages_manage_engagement
  • pages_read_engagement
  • pages_read_user_engagement

Page tasks

Your app user must be able to perform the following tasks on the in the API requests:

  • MODERATE
  • CREATE_CONTENT

Page features

Your app will need the following features:

  • Page Mentioning

IDs

  • The Page Post ID for the Page post
  • The Page-scoped ID for the person who created the Page post or comment, if you want to @mention that person

Best Practices

When testing an API call, you can include the access_token parameter set to your access token. However, when making secure calls from your app, use the access token class.

Comments

You can comment on a Page post or a comment on a comment. The author of the comment will be the Page.

Limitations

  • If a Page is unpublished no one will be able to comment on a Page post or comment.
  • If you try to comment as a User you will see a 1705 error code with "message":"(#1705) There was an error posting to this wall".

Comment on a Post

To comment on a Page post, send a POST request to the /page_post_id/comments endpoint with the message parameter set to the content for your comment.

Example Request

Formatted for readability. Replace bold, italics values, such as page_post_id, with your values.
curl -i -X POST "https://graph.facebook.comv19.0/page_post_id/comments" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{
           "message":"your_message_text",
         }'

On success, your app receives the following JSON response with id set to the comment ID:

{
  "id":"comment_id"  
}

Comment on a comment

To comment on a comment, you will need to get the comments for a Page post, then get the ID for the comment you want to comment on.

Get comments

To get the comments for a Page post, send a GET request to the /page_post_id/comments endpoint with the fields parameter set to a comma-separated list that includes the message field, to get the content for the comment and the from field, to get the Page-scoped ID (PSID) for the person or Page who commented on the post, if you would like to @mention the person or Page in the comment.

Example Request

Formatted for readability. Replace bold, italics values, such as page_post_id, with your values.
curl -i -X GET "https://graph.facebook.com/page_post_id/comments?fields=from,message"

On success, your app receives the following JSON response with the commentor's name, PSID, message and the comment ID:

{
  "data": [
    {
      "created_time": "2020-02-19T23:05:53+0000",
      "from": {
        "name": "commentor_name",
        "id": "commentor_PSID"
      },
      "message": "comment_content",
     "id": "comment_id"
    }
  ],
  "paging": {
    "cursors": {
      "before": "MQZDZD",
      "after": "MQZDZD"
    }
  }
}

@mention or tag

You can reply to a specific person or Facebook Page by mentioning, or tagging, the person in a comment. A notification will be sent to the person who has been mentioned by the Page. The most common uses for @mentions are:

  • Replying to a specific Facebook Page or person who commented on a Page post or Page post comment that received multiple comments
  • Batch replying to multiple people who commented on a Page post or commented on a Page post comment.

Limitations

  • In the Settings of your Page, you must have allowed Others Tagging this Page.
  • A Page can only mention a person if the person commented on a Page post or if the person created the Page post.

Testing

When testing your app before going live, you must be an admin or a developer of the app and use Pages (both to make the API call, and to be used in a mention) for which you are an admin.

Reply to a Post

To mention a person or a Page who published a post on your Facebook Page, send a POST request to the ID for the Page post with the message parameter set to your comment content that includes the @ symbol with the person's PSID or the Page's ID.

Example Request

Formatted for readability. Replace bold, italics values, such as page_post_id, with your values.
curl -i -X POST "https://graph.facebook.comv19.0/page_post_id" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{
           "message":"your_message_text @[PSID]",
         }'

On success, your app receives the following JSON response with id set to the ID for your comment:

{
  "id":"comment_id"  
}

Reply to a Comment

To mention a person or a Page who commented on your Facebook Page post, send a POST request to the ID for the comment with the message parameter set to your comment content that includes the @ symbol followed by an an array with the person's PSID or the Page's ID.

To mention multiple people, use an array of a comma-separated of PSIDs.

Example Request

Formatted for readability. Replace bold, italics values, such as page_post_id, with your values.
curl -i -X POST "https://graph.facebook.comv19.0/comment_id" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{
           "message":"your_message_text @[PSID,PSID,PSID]",
         }'

On success, your app receives the following JSON response with id set to the ID for your comment:

{
  "id":"comment_id"  
}

Next Steps

Learn how to start conversations with people who are interested in your Page and how to send a private reply to a specific person who has posted or commmented on your Page.

See Also