How do you sync PHP code with Social Media, to show 'followers'?

[simona6]

We are building a site for users to post articles on certain topics and we want to show their number of followers on various social media platforms.

Apart from them having the means to add it manually, there must be a method of syncing with their account, that they punch in, so that it dynamically updates our database with their number of followers.

How is it done?

[chhorn]

Best way is tu query the APIs of the platforms if available.

[simona6]

Sure - how do we find out how to get those, and how to query them, so our DB gets updated dynamically?

[maxxd]

https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs

https://developers.facebook.com/

All the major social media outlets have API documentation available, and all the ones I've ever had to deal with had PHP integration libraries freely available on GitHub or their respective developer sites - Google it and you should be on your way.

[simona6]

Goodness me... where does one start..............

[simona6]

https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/accounts-and-users/follow-search-get-users/api-reference/get-followers-list

This is getting close to it.... 

[requinix]

Are you sure you need to do this from PHP? There should be a client-side API that embeds some Twitter information if you give it a username.

[simona6]

All we need to do, is assign the username the person has entered onto our website database, and compare that with Twitter - access their "amount of followers", and then update OUR system to that effect.

Same for the other SM platforms too.

[simona6]

function twitter_user_info($screen_name){
 
    $data = file_get_contents("https://api.twitter.com/1.1/users/lookup.json?screen_name=" . $screen_name);
    $data = json_decode($data, true);
    //echo $data;
    return $data[0];
}
 
$twitter = twitter_user_info("test_user");
echo "Followers count: " . $twitter['followers_count'];

I read that this should work, when you replace "test_user" with the handler, but it doesn't.

Anyone got an ideas please?

[kicken]

https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/accounts-and-users/follow-search-get-users/api-reference/get-users-lookup

Quote

Requires authentication?  Yes

You have to authenticate your request, you can't just load up the URL.

 

[simona6]

Gotcha.  I've setup a Developer account and just waiting for approval now.
What about Facebook and Instagram.  Do they have similar methods?

[maxxd]

8 hours ago, simona6 said:

What about Facebook and Instagram.  Do they have similar methods?

Yes. Just remember that there are a lot of tutorials still on the web that were written in a simpler time, so if it doesn't mention having to authenticate the request it's very likely rather old and probably won't work. I can't guarantee that's the case, of course, but given the privacy concerns (or lack thereof) that have come to light recently it probably is.

[simona6]

I see.  Twitter have accepted us as Developers, so we can at least try that now!