Convert Old Shortcode

This post is for those who have a version of Feed Them Social installed prior to 4.0 and need to convert an existing shortcode to work with our latest update. This major change will enhance security and make it 100% easier to make option changes to the feed. No more re-generating shortcodes for every change you want to make.

When updating to 4.0 your old shortcodes will not work and your feeds will not be visible. In this update we hide your shortcodes from the public so the shortcode code is not displaying. Once you login you will see your shortcode and notice a message about what to do next. Read the steps below for more clarity.

To get started you will need 2 things.

1. The Feed Them Social shortcode you want to convert.
2. Permission to get an Access Token for Instagram or Facebook feed, if the type of shortcode you are trying to convert.

Step 1 Go to the page where your shortcode is located. Click on the shortcode so it is copied to your clipboard. You should see a success message and a link that says, Click here for next step. That will create a new Feed post on the backend, now you can go to step 2.

Step 2 After clicking the Next Step link, paste your old shortcode into the Convert Old Shortcode input option and click the blue Convert button. This will map your old options to the new input fields.

The shortcode we are converting below is for a Instagram Business feed. You'll notice after converting the shortcode there is a Success, Shortcode Converted message and the Instagram Business Tab is also selected. This lets us know the shortcode was converted successfully.

Step 3 is to click the button that says Login and Get my Access Token. The reason you need to click the button instead of copying in an old Access token is because we are making sure that all old Access Tokens for Facebook and Instagram that used to be in shortcodes do not have the possibility to be visible by the general public or tracked by google. All Facebook and Instagram Access Tokens will now be encrypted before being saved to the database.

If the shortcode you are converting is for Twitter or YouTube, you can simply copy and paste your Access Token for Twitter or the API Key for YouTube into the respective input fields.

If all went well your feed should be visible.

Step 4 is to replace your old shortcode with the new one.

Please don't hesitate to contact us if you are having troubles.