How to Restrict Content on a Custom Facebook Tab
Last year I wrote about how you could restrict content on a custom Facebook tab so that only people who had liked or become a fan of the page could view the content.
Content on a custom Facebook tab can also be restricted by age, location, content type, and the owner of a particular Facebook profile.
Age
fb:18-plus – restricts content to users who are 18 or older
<fb:18-plus>18 or older<fb:else>Sesame Street</fb:else></fb:18-plus>
fb:21-plus – restricts to users who are 21 or older
<fb:21-plus>21 or older<fb:else>Sesame Street</fb:else></fb:21-plus>
Location, Age, and Type
fb:restricted-to – restrict by age, location, and type
age – an age range can be used or a +/- can be used after the age to designate that age or older/younger. For example:
<fb:restricted-to age=”17-”>Let’s talk about Twilight.
<fb:else>Cool, the kids are gone!</fb:else>
</fb:restricted-to><fb:restricted-to age=”65+”>Let’s talk about retirement.
<fb:else>Cool, the seniors are gone!</fb:else>
</fb:restricted-to><fb:restricted-to age=”18-35″>Let’s talk about our careers.
<fb:else>Content for everyone</fb:else>
</fb:restricted-to>
location – Restrict the content to certain countries. The countries are specified in a comma separated list using the ISO 3166 alpha 2 code list.
<fb:restricted-to location=”aq”>Special content for Antarctica.
<fb:else>You’re not from Antartica</fb:else>
</fb:restricted-to>
type – the only type that can currently be restricted is alcohol.
<fb:restricted-to location=”us” type=”alcohol”>Enjoy some wine.
<fb:else>Enjoy some water.</fb:else>
</fb:restricted-to>
Content for Page Admin
fb:visible-to-owner – this restricts content so it can only be viewed by an Admin of the page.
<fb:visible-to-owner>
Top secret plans for Facebook page admins
</fb:visible-to-owner>
Would any of these be useful on your custom Facebook tab?
photo credit: Grahford
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January 13, 2011 at 3:57 am
Intriguing. Could there also be custom greetings based on referring URL?
Ari Herzog´s last post ..Rebirth
January 14, 2011 at 8:26 am
Hi Ari – I don’t know. Maybe but that would take more complex programming.
January 13, 2011 at 4:59 am
Such a nice thing to know as I had no idea about these possibilities. Thanks for informing it.
Shailender @ Valentine Vacation´s last post ..Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays from India Darshan
January 14, 2011 at 8:26 am
Hi Shailender – You’re welcome.
January 19, 2011 at 4:13 pm
Hi,
As the poster child for computer illiteracy, I am so completely frustrated that I can’t find the answer to this question anywhere.
On the basic Facebook tabs for our fan page, a post by my company looks like it’s coming from the company, not a particular person (like Facebook assures is the case in its justification for why every fan page has to have a personal profile)
BUT, on the static FBML tabs, a comment from my company looks like it’s coming from the personal profile of the page administrator. I don’t want this and can’t figure out how to change it. Please help!!!
Thanks!
Robin
January 20, 2011 at 9:54 am
Hi Robin,
Is the static fbml tab using the fbml code for comments? It will show the URL that was set up in the application.
http://www.kimwoodbridge.com/livestream/
But any comment will show as being from the “person” who left the comment as we can’t login as the page (yet).
I’m not 100% certain about my answer here – do you have a URL to the page?
January 20, 2011 at 11:58 am
Hi Kim,
Yes, it is for comments, but it’s not public yet. Here’s a link to the page as it is now. If you click on the wall, you’ll see the post that looks like it’s from the company.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/CGI-Communications-Inc/146873722033185?v=app_6009294086
Thanks!
Robin
January 20, 2011 at 2:25 pm
Hi Robin,
Unfortunately, I can’t see an unpublished page. I do know that the comments have a custom url set up for the app. It could be that the url was set to someone’s profile rather than the for the page.
January 20, 2011 at 2:57 pm
Is there a way to change that? I can see “owner ID” in the URL for the FBML followed by a long list of numbers, but I can’t find where the one for the company is. If I go to our wall in edit mode, the number is the same. The only difference is that there’s an “sk” whereas on the FBML, there is not.
The code that’s in the FBML pages for the comment box is:
I have a feeling that I’m supposed to replace the “xid” with the number, but when I did it yesterday, it didn’t work. In fact, the box went away.
Thanks,
Robin
January 20, 2011 at 3:15 pm
Here are the URL’s from the wall, the FBML, and the personal profile:
From Wall:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001964291868#!/pages/CGI-Communications-Inc/146873722033185?v=wall
From FBML:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/CGI-Communications-Inc/146873722033185?v=app_6009294086#!/staticfbml/edit.php?owner_id=146873722033185&app_id=6009294086
From Frank’s profile:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/CGI-Communications-Inc/146873722033185?v=app_6009294086#!/profile.php?id=100001964291868
January 21, 2011 at 8:10 am
Hi Robin,
Unfortunately, I would need to look at it to answer this correctly. I am starting to think that we are talking about 2 different things …
January 21, 2011 at 9:55 am
What do you think I’m talking about? I just want the posts to look like they’re coming from the company on our FBML pages like they do on our wall.
January 21, 2011 at 10:11 am
I’m not 100% certain that we are talking about the same thing. I *think* a custom application was created, which is why I directed you initially to the livestream article that has information about how this comment box is set-up and the URL field that *might* need to be changed. As I am a visual person, I usually need to see what it is I’m trying to fix.
March 31, 2011 at 11:14 pm
How can you restrict certain Facebook Fanpage TABS to only fans using iFrames – any idea Kim??
April 1, 2011 at 2:55 pm
Hi Kayan,
I don’t think you can do that. Iframes isn’t a setting the user turns on and off – it’s a method of building custom tabs. A user will see the content regardless of the type of application used to create it.