What does what?
I have been working with several clients on Facebook pages recently and it has come to light that the whole “like”, “share” and “become a fan” thing is a tad confusing for some people.
This post will clear that up for us. At the end of the post please feel free to ask any other questions you may have about Facebook.
Ok so here is what these things actually do (or did, in the case of “become a fan”)…
- Like – as in like a status, a photo or more recently a website or blog
- Become a fan –You can become a fan (“like” a page, a group, a person and a product.
- Share – If you visit website and blogs you will notice that some have a little square Facebook icon with Share written on it. To post to your profile wall.
I’m not sure why but no one at Facebook seemed to think that it would be confusing to start calling all these three things “LIKE”!
“LIKE” on Facebook is now context sensitive and mostly depends on where you are and what you are looking at.
Ok now let’s take the originally interactivity actions and explain them in the new “Like” era
Like is the dominating action now when interacting with Facebook and is just the start of Facebook’s infiltration into web search. (More on that in a later post) You can now “like” a status, a photo, a comment, a friend, and outside of Facebook you can “like” blog posts and web pages if they have the like button installed.
You can install the like “button” using this tool
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like
Or for WordPress they have a plug in
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facebook-like-button-for-wordpress/
Become a fan is now “LIKE”. If you are looking at a product, service, or Facebook page (i.e. a business page such as mine) you click the “like” button and you essentially become a fan and that information is added to your INFO tab on your Facebook profile.If you have your own website or blog and you want to give your visitors the option to “like” and associated Facebook page you can use the Facebook Like Box
You can install the Like Box on your website or blog very easily by using this tool:
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like-box
Share is now like AND share (LOL) This functionality is where you read a blog or website from outside of Facebook and you want to share it on your profile wall. You simply click on the little square Facebook share icon and the post will show up on your wall.
You can find the code to create a share button here:
http://www.facebook.com/share/
Or for WordPress users there is a plug in (obviously)
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facebook-share-new/
While we are at it… The little green Tweet me box which is roughly the same size its fits nicely next to the Facebook share button, can be found here
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweetmeme/
So in conclusion
It can be confusing and a tad annoying but looking at it with my web business owner’s hat on, I think of the three options like this:
To increase the fan base (or amount of “likes”) to your Facebook page that is associated with your website, install a Facebook Like Box in your websites side bar.
To have people be able to click on something on your blog or website and have a news item posted to their wall about that item use the Share Icon Widget
And Finally
You can achieve the same result as a share button using a “Like Button”
I hope that explanations helps. Remember if you have any questions about whole “Like” phenomenon please leave a comment below.
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