I'm developing a website where users can earn discounts on my items by liking and sharing links to social media websites (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

 

I have the share function figured out, but I don't know how to get acknowledgement from Facebook, Twitter, etc. that the sharing has been successful (i.e. that the link has been successfully posted to the users Facebook, Twitter, etc. account).

 

Users should only receive discounts once the link, etc. has been successfully shared.

 

Can anyone provide some insight into how I can get this function to work?

 

I appreciate your help. Thanks in advance!

I can't speak for Facebook but the Twitter API will respond to everything you send it and will tell you if what you tried to do was successful.

https://dev.twitter.com/docs/error-codes-responses

Thank you for your reply.

 

I'm a bit new to this. Could you please explain what API is?

 

Also, if I were to run a search for this type of function, which keywords should I be using?

 

Thanks again!

At its most basic Application Programming Interface is how applications communicate with each other. Twitter, Facebook, Google Maps, Wordpress etc provide 'rules' and entry points for other applications to use or extend their functionality. Wordpress plugins use the wordpress api set to add functions.

 

You will have to go through the documentation to learn how to use their api - search twitter api or facebook api.

Thank you very much!

 

Users should only receive discounts once the link, etc. has been successfully shared.

Ever thought what happens if a user decides to delete the post after he has shared it?

Ever thought what happens if a user decides to delete the post after he has shared it?

 

Yes, but I'm not familiar enough with this type of programming to consider possible solutions. While I've searched for API, and found a good amount of documentation, my meager background in HTML/CSS is too inadequate to allow me to take the next step.

 

I'm trying to get in touch with others who can help explain this to me. If anyone has some suggestions, I'd be greatly appreciative.

It depends what language you will be programming your site in (php etc). Often the service (twitter/facebook) will have frameworks for you do download and use. It saves you doing all of the coding yourself.

 

For example there is a .Net framework for Facebook out there...