Connect to the API

The following are the steps to connect to the API:

1. Firstly, we import the required libraries as follows:

import requests 
import json 

1. Create a params variable that contains your access token.

params = {'access_token': 'YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN'} 

1. Make a request to the feed for the Mercedes Benz page.

page_url = 'https://graph.facebook.com/v2.8/MercedesBenzFrance/feed' 
result = requests.get(page_url, params = params) 

1. Parse the results as a JSON.

data = result.json() 

The data field contains a list of messages with the following fields: message, created_at, and id. We will print the content of messages.

for element in data['data']: 
  print(element['message'] 

This simple method helps us access the content of conversations on Facebook pages. We will use this information to perform data mining and extract insights in Chapter 3, Uncovering Brand Activity, Emotions, and Popularity on Facebook.