I’ve been looking into Facebook’s actions and objects system, and I’m really impressed by how Spotify displays their user activities. Their action posts have such a unique and polished appearance compared to the standard format.
From what I can tell in Facebook’s documentation, the typical structure seems to be just: (user) – (performed action) – on – (target object) with some basic title and description text below it.
But Spotify’s actions look completely different with custom styling and layout. Does anyone know how they achieve this custom formatting? Are they using special HTML markup in the description field, or is there some other method to control the visual presentation of these action posts? I’m trying to figure out the technical approach they use to make their actions stand out so much from the standard format.
Facebook killed their Open Graph actions and custom story types in 2018 - that’s why you can’t find docs on this stuff anymore. Spotify’s custom layouts used Facebook’s old Open Graph protocol that let apps create custom story formats with special markup and styling. Now you’re stuck with standard sharing methods or Facebook’s current APIs, which barely let you customize anything. Want rich, custom-styled social posts today? You’ll need to work within Facebook’s current limits or generate custom images programmatically. The days of heavily customized action layouts on Facebook are over.
What you’re seeing from Spotify is leftover stuff from Facebook’s old Open Graph Actions system - they killed it years ago. Those custom layouts used to work through Facebook’s Action Types API, where developers could create custom story templates with fancy formatting and structured data. When it was still around, you’d build custom action types in Facebook’s App Dashboard and control how stories showed up in feeds. The system let you use custom objects, properties, and even some styling - made posts look way more integrated and polished. Since Facebook axed this feature, any Spotify actions you still see are just legacy posts that never got updated or removed. For anything new, you’re stuck with Facebook’s current sharing tools that barely let you customize anything. Your best bet now is using Facebook’s standard post types with good images and descriptions, but it’s nowhere near as flexible as Open Graph Actions was.