For a client’s application, we needed to programmatically (without user-intervention) update the Status (Wall) of a Page for a Company. After researching the API and several guides, you would think it was just not possible..
In fact, there’s even a forum post on the Facebook developers forum on How to update facebook page status from 3rd party application
where a Facebook employee explains that it is impossible (as of 2007, at least).
The good news is, it is not impossible (as of right now). Here’s how to update the Status of a Facebook Page Programmatically, through the API.
What you’ll need:
- Ruby and RubyGems
- A Facebook Account
- A Facebook Page
- A Facebook Developer Account/Access (we’ll go through setting this up)
- A Ruby or Rails app with access to the facebooker library (either as a gem or using the Rails plugin).
Update: As pointed out in the comments, publishing through Facebook using the method described below does place content on the fan page, however, it is not displayed in any user’s feeds or streams, which makes it not quite so useful. We have since opted to go with the uber-cool ping.FM service and we even wrote a little ping.fm ruby wrapper library for their API.
