HOW TO DISPLAY FACEBOOK FANS COUNT AS TEXT

Want to show off how many fans your Facebook page has? I will now explain how to do so in just a few steps!
STEP 1 – GET API KEY, APPLICATION SECRET & PAGE ID

API Key and Application Secret

First off, you’ll need to login to Facebook and click the Developer link on the footers site bar. If you don’t already have a Developer Account, you’ll have to sign up for one first.

Secondly, you’ll need to create a new App, click the Apps link in the top nav bar. Then hit + Create New App. We aren’t actually going to create an App, we just need to go through this process to get an API Key and Application Secret.



Thirdly, on the next page you should be able to see your personal API Key and Application Secret. Copy it down somewhere or leave the browser window open.



Page ID

Page ID is the ID of your Facebook Fan Page. If you don’t have a Facebook Fan page, you’ll have to first create one. To get the ID of your Fan page, click edit page, and look for your ID (numbers) at the end of the URL – http://www.facebook.com/pages/edit/?id=XXXXXXXXX
STEP 2 – GET FACEBOOK.PHP

You’ll also need the Facebook API PHP SDK file called Facebook.php. Click here to get thefacebook.php code. Just copy and paste the code into a blank file and save as facebook.php and save it to your root folder of your websites directory.
STEP 3 – DISPLAY THE FAN COUNT

To display the fan count copy and paste the following code anywhere into the php file your count will be displayed on:

<?php
require_once('facebook.php');
$facebook = new Facebook(array(
'appId' => 'app_id',
'secret' => 'secret_key',
'cookie' => true,
));
$result = $facebook->api(array(
'method' => 'fql.query',
'query' => 'select fan_count from page where page_id = page_id;'
));
$fb_fans = $result[0]['fan_count'];
?>

And then you will want to edit the codes to change the following:

Line 4 – Replace app_id with your Facebook Application ID.
Line 5 – Replace secret_key with Secret.
Line 10 – Replace the last page_id with your Facebook Fanpage ID.

Please refer to Step 1 on how to get app_id, secret_key and page_id

Now simply copy and paste the following code where you want the Fan count to display:

<?php echo $fb_fans; ?>

STEP 4 – STYLING

Finally you can style your fan count, here is an example:

HTML

<?php
require_once('facebook.php');
$facebook = new Facebook(array(
'appId' => 'app_id',
'secret' => 'secret_key',
'cookie' => true,
));
$result = $facebook->api(array(
'method' => 'fql.query',
'query' => 'select fan_count from page where page_id = page_id;'
));
$fb_fans = $result[0]['fan_count'];
?>

<p><span class="fb-count"><?php echo $fb_fans; ?></span> Facebook Fans</p>

CSS

p {
color:#fff;
}

span.fb-count {
font-size: 22px;
padding-left: 5px;
color: #1e7c9a;
}

Simple really isn’t it? Again if you come across any problems then please comment and one of us shall assist you.