How to scrape Facebook and do it the best

Being the #1 social network around the world, Facebook is the greatest source of content that can be used not only for fun. As there are 2.85+ billion registered users worldwide, Facebook offers great opportunities for businesses and these are not only the Marketplace of Official Business Pages. Haven't you heard about Facebook scrape opportunities? This term refers to the ability to collect data from users' profiles, their posts, and likes, official articles issued on Facebook and other parts of that network. Making a brief example, you can get info about companies' image or the number of positive/negative mentions about a certain brand in social networks. Making surveys or parsing each profile manually is not a win-win option for this. Yet, using scraping tools you can extract information and get it in a certain order.

Let's look at the web scrape on Facebook in more detail to comprehend whether you need it and how to scrape data efficiently.

The principle of Facebook data scraper's routine lies in its automation. That's why if you need to scrape data from Facebook, you need to choose an efficient tool that will cope with that task of web scraping Facebook. Here's our shortlist of tools you may appreciate the most.

Tool #1 Phantombuster

One of the most famous scrappers and one of the oldest ones. This tool is compatible with all main OSs (Windows, Linux, macOS) and it offers cloud-based solutions. Yet, its main drawback hides in paid options. 14 days of trial use is not enough when you set ambitious goals and then you have to pay for it monthly.

Tool #2 Octoparse

This easy-to-operate tool suits using it for large-scale projects. It offers scrapping services for multiple websites with Facebook being among them. Yet for smaller goals, it's not a perfect match as it offers a paid subscription for a considerable cost. If you try to scrape Facebook data in its trial period, you'll fail as Facebook is not available for scrapping for free in Octoparse.

Tool #3 ParceHub Scrapper

This service is closer to the top as it offers both paid and free options including API-based access. Its main merit is in its user-friendly interface. Yet, there are fewer options for Facebook that is, not all kinds of data can be collected with it.

Tool #4 Data365 API

This API-based option allows you to scrape Facebook pages using keywords in queries. That helps to collect the most relevant data and to order it by several filters. Besides, you can get info about Facebook public profiles, posts, comments, and other Facebook content with ease using it.

Facebook is an inexhaustible source of information that can be used for several goals. Often, this data is a helper for achieving business goals, political and sociological investigations, etc. Using Facebook scrape for pages is often called illegal activity. We do not agree with that statement in the case of mining information that is publicly available, because any person can collect interesting data without scraping. Although the last may take much longer depending on the task scope.

Analytic companies mainly use the scrape of Facebook pages for the following purposes of marketing research:

Tracking competitors' prices. Data that can get from scrape Facebook can help estimate the average price rate for products.

Researching a targeted audience when scraping Facebook profiles is a good idea for launching a new product on the market.

Monitoring news and events are also easily performed with it.

Content efficiency analyses. Lots of businesses or opinion leaders use Facebook to promote their products or ideas. With scrapping tools, you can collect stats about your content and analyze it.

As for the data that can be obtained using Facebook scrapers, they directly depend on your goals. When you scrape Facebook user profiles, you can extract the following info as ID, name, photos, current city, the number of followers, etc. In brief, all the information you may need about users. When you scrape Facebook groups you can also get useful info about the number of posts in the group, the number of likes, comments, main topics of posts, or mentions of certain keywords you need to calculate.

Similarly, you can collect data about mentions of products, the popularity of events based on posts and comments. The possibilities of scraping software are limited only by your needs and the accuracy of key search queries.

For example, Facebook API by Data365 also lets you get extra unique data like gender and age recognition (via face photos) as well as identification of post reactions that give a competitive advantage in obtained analytics.

As for extracting data from posts on a social network, then this is your opportunity to provide the following processes using Facebook page scraper:

Analyzing the number of mentions of a company or a product, personality, or informational occasion in the context of periods. For example, you can track how often your seasonal product, is mentioned in a certain month.

Collecting information about the emotional coloring of mentions. This helps to control the work on the image of the company, personality, or product.

Track the needs of the target audience. For example, if your potential customers mention regularly they need some product, it is time to start thinking about whether it's time to offer it to your customers.

Facebook groups are not just a community but also a real informational bombshell. Groups often have discussions on important topics. Posts, comments, likes in Facebook groups can help you achieve your goals. In addition, you can scrape Facebook group posts to get information about the most active users, their requests, and their needs. This is a great way to explore the market or identify the non-obvious needs of the audience.

User profiles are actually a dossier for each person. Scrapping services and programs easily extract information about sociological metrics from user profiles. The essence of scraping user profiles is, first of all, drawing up a portrait of the target audience and studying market segments by analyzing the profiles of those who are present in this market. In the case of competition, analyzing information obtained from competitors' profiles will help you find their weak points in communication and self-presentation in order to avoid them. That is why you need a Facebook profile scraper.

To get the data you exactly need, just using a scraping service is not enough. Let's give a couple of tips on how to scrape data from Facebook.

First of all, decide on the tools. Will it be a paid service, API, or will you order writing an individual scraping script? For beginners, the best decision is to use some automated solutions that are easy to operate. When you need to extract data from Facebook to provide your customers with social media listening services, it is better to choose API-integrated solutions for Facebook scrapping as some European companies did.

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Ask yourself: What data do you need? Determine where this data is most likely to be found. For example, it is convenient to collect a pool of users with a specific metric (gender, age, interests) based on the analysis of user profiles. In the same way, you can choose mentions of a product or reaction to an event from posts, comments, and user reactions.

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Create a keyword query that will help you find the data.

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Knowing how to scrape Facebook posts, profiles, groups, business pages, comments, and so on is the key to obtaining comprehensive data. Scrapping helps to solve many problems in business, politics, and the social sphere. And the most important thing is to choose the right goals and tools to achieve them with scrapping.

Export the collected information to the format with which you plan to work further. A reliable Facebook scrapping tool will give you the ability to transfer data to database formats, XML, CSV, or any other format. When you need some data for your product, app, or service, it is a win-win option to get them in JSON using API.

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Analyze the data in your own way!

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