4 ms·

Get Facebook Likes in Excel

26 points by karamazov 14y ago

kirillzubovsky 14y ago
Competitor analysis with simple Excel tools. Hm.. I like that ! I wonder if you could build a whole Excel application for social media tracking. There are companies out there that are very successful in this space. Perhaps with your superior technology you could outdo them!
- TomAnthony 14y ago
  Here are some tools you might like! :) A blog post I wrote on getting Facebook Likes/Shares, Tweets and Google +1s in Google Docs: http://www.distilled.net/blog/social-media/3-quick-ways-to-check-social-metrics/ http://www.distilled.net/blog/social-media/3-quick-ways-to-c... An awesome set of SEO tools for Excel: http://nielsbosma.se/projects/seotools/ http://nielsbosma.se/projects/seotools/ A great new tool for getting competitor backlink data in Excel: https://seogadget.co.uk/mozscape-api-extension-for-excel/ https://seogadget.co.uk/mozscape-api-extension-for-excel/
nathancahill 14y ago
Python is awesome.
bilbobaggie 14y ago
Pretty good for a first program! :)
joelrunyon 14y ago
Is there a version of DataNitro for Office for Mac?
- iamchrisle 14y ago
  Nope. I'll keep dreaming too. ;)
amitparikh 14y ago
The script is not getting 'likes,' it's pulling the number of 'shares' for a particular URL. If you want to get to a brand's like-count, you'll need to feed the Graph API with either the Facebook Username of the account (e.g. "nike", not "http://www.nike.com http://www.nike.com "), or with the Facebook ID# of the brand (e.g. "15087023444").
- iamchrisle 14y ago
  Ah. Right! Thanks. I'll have to change this today then.
- TomAnthony 14y ago
  This can be misleading though. This script does get the count you will see on a Facebook 'Like' button which is actually the sum of the 'like','share', and 'comment' counts. For example, the script gets a count of 1,257,333 for www.apple.com: https://graph.facebook.com/?ids=http://www.apple.com https://graph.facebook.com/?ids=http://www.apple.com Which from here we can see is the sum of the 3 values: http://api.facebook.com/restserver.php?method=links.getStats&format=json&urls=http://www.apple.com http://api.facebook.com/restserver.php?method=links.getStats... And by entering www.apple.com as the URL here we can confirm is exactly the figure the Like button shows: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/ http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/ So whilst maybe not 100% accurate in some regards, it is certainly what many people would refer to as the 'like' count (and they'd be confused if you gave a lower number which isn't what the like button on the page showed). This tool is aimed more at URLs than brands.
vecinu 14y ago
Is it just me or is the recent surge of DataNitro scripts just proof of concepts? I don't really want to do get Facebook Likes in Excel or play Blackjack. They added a Python handler in Excel to do this, it isn't native. My question is, why is this interesting?
- TomAnthony 14y ago
  I can't speak to the wider surge of DataNitro scripts, but this example is certainly useful to a lot of people. I regularly have to check the social signals for a lot of URLs, and then wrangle the data in Excel. Now I can do it faster and more efficiently. :) Also I wasn't aware of DataNitro until now, so I actually found this interesting too. I'll be thinking what I can come up with!
- iamchrisle 14y ago
  For me, it's still "proof of concept" right now. It's interesting because Python is much easier to use than VBA. Where I work, we use a lot of Excel and data from various sources. The ability to leverage Python code can be a big deal for me.
  - jlarocco 14y ago
    It's been possible to script Excel (and the rest of Office) using Python for probably 15 years now. I'm pretty sure the COM package is included with all the Win32 Python builds, but if not it's just a package install. It's a bit disappointing that so many people don't learn about the tools they're using.
- xxbondsxx 14y ago
  My guess is advertising. HN is their exact demographic / target users, and if you check the front page of "classic" HN where only old accounts can vote: http://news.ycombinator.org/classic http://news.ycombinator.org/classic It's gone. Someone gamed this to the front page
  - laconian 14y ago
1010011010 14y ago
Some poor schmuck is wrangling excel spreadsheets with facebook integration for clueless twits, somewhere. Glad it's not me.

26 points by karamazov 14y ago

Competitor analysis with simple Excel tools. Hm.. I like that ! I wonder if you could build a whole Excel application for social media tracking. There are companies out there that are very successful in this space. Perhaps with your superior technology you could outdo them!

TomAnthony 14y ago
Here are some tools you might like! :) A blog post I wrote on getting Facebook Likes/Shares, Tweets and Google +1s in Google Docs: http://www.distilled.net/blog/social-media/3-quick-ways-to-check-social-metrics/ http://www.distilled.net/blog/social-media/3-quick-ways-to-c... An awesome set of SEO tools for Excel: http://nielsbosma.se/projects/seotools/ http://nielsbosma.se/projects/seotools/ A great new tool for getting competitor backlink data in Excel: https://seogadget.co.uk/mozscape-api-extension-for-excel/ https://seogadget.co.uk/mozscape-api-extension-for-excel/

nathancahill 14y ago

Python is awesome.

bilbobaggie 14y ago

Pretty good for a first program! :)

joelrunyon 14y ago

Is there a version of DataNitro for Office for Mac?

iamchrisle 14y ago
Nope. I'll keep dreaming too. ;)

amitparikh 14y ago

The script is not getting 'likes,' it's pulling the number of 'shares' for a particular URL. If you want to get to a brand's like-count, you'll need to feed the Graph API with either the Facebook Username of the account (e.g. "nike", not "http://www.nike.com http://www.nike.com "), or with the Facebook ID# of the brand (e.g. "15087023444").

iamchrisle 14y ago
Ah. Right! Thanks. I'll have to change this today then.
TomAnthony 14y ago
This can be misleading though. This script does get the count you will see on a Facebook 'Like' button which is actually the sum of the 'like','share', and 'comment' counts. For example, the script gets a count of 1,257,333 for www.apple.com: https://graph.facebook.com/?ids=http://www.apple.com https://graph.facebook.com/?ids=http://www.apple.com Which from here we can see is the sum of the 3 values: http://api.facebook.com/restserver.php?method=links.getStats&format=json&urls=http://www.apple.com http://api.facebook.com/restserver.php?method=links.getStats... And by entering www.apple.com as the URL here we can confirm is exactly the figure the Like button shows: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/ http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/ So whilst maybe not 100% accurate in some regards, it is certainly what many people would refer to as the 'like' count (and they'd be confused if you gave a lower number which isn't what the like button on the page showed). This tool is aimed more at URLs than brands.

vecinu 14y ago

Is it just me or is the recent surge of DataNitro scripts just proof of concepts? I don't really want to do get Facebook Likes in Excel or play Blackjack. They added a Python handler in Excel to do this, it isn't native. My question is, why is this interesting?

TomAnthony 14y ago
I can't speak to the wider surge of DataNitro scripts, but this example is certainly useful to a lot of people. I regularly have to check the social signals for a lot of URLs, and then wrangle the data in Excel. Now I can do it faster and more efficiently. :) Also I wasn't aware of DataNitro until now, so I actually found this interesting too. I'll be thinking what I can come up with!
iamchrisle 14y ago
For me, it's still "proof of concept" right now. It's interesting because Python is much easier to use than VBA. Where I work, we use a lot of Excel and data from various sources. The ability to leverage Python code can be a big deal for me.
- jlarocco 14y ago
  It's been possible to script Excel (and the rest of Office) using Python for probably 15 years now. I'm pretty sure the COM package is included with all the Win32 Python builds, but if not it's just a package install. It's a bit disappointing that so many people don't learn about the tools they're using.
xxbondsxx 14y ago
My guess is advertising. HN is their exact demographic / target users, and if you check the front page of "classic" HN where only old accounts can vote: http://news.ycombinator.org/classic http://news.ycombinator.org/classic It's gone. Someone gamed this to the front page
- laconian 14y ago

1010011010 14y ago

Some poor schmuck is wrangling excel spreadsheets with facebook integration for clueless twits, somewhere. Glad it's not me.