Add the Facebook Like Button to your Blog or Website
If you’ve been online at all in the last 45 days, you’ve likely seen Facebook’s new Like (or Recommend) button on websites all over the internet. In April Facebook released Open Graph (check out ReadWriteWeb’s excellent summary here), which, in short, gives websites – large and small – the ability to integrate some of Facebook’s social features into their own sites.
One of the most useful bits of Open Graph is also among the easiest to implement on your website or blog. Facebook’s universal Like button can be added to your website with a single line of code and can dynamically added to your self-hosted WordPress blog with a simple plugin.
Facebook’s new universal Like button allows users to click that they like or recommend a website. That information is then sent through to your Facebook profile so your friends can see that you enjoyed the site you were visiting. By making it so easy to share things you enjoy with your friends, Facebook has helped increase the viral nature of sharing links.
Install the Facebook Like Button on your Website:
Facebook offers a host of social plugins that you can install on your website or blog, with varying degrees of programming knowledge, but the easiest option is checking out the Facebook Like Social Plugin page. You’ll want to use this method if you’re simply sticking the Facebook Like plugin on your static homepage. If you have a blog and would like the Like button to be on every post, see below.
On this page, simply fill in the website that the Like button will live on, choose your layout style, whether or not you want the plugin to show faces of people who like your site, the width, the verb you want to use (either Like or Recommend), the font you want to use and the color scheme. Then click the “Get Code” button and you can copy and paste the code into your website wherever you want the button to appear. This provides you with an easy way to include Facebook’s new Like feature on your website and can help your web traffic as people Liking your page.
Install the Facebook Like Button on your self-hosted WordPress blog:
If you’re self-hosting a WordPress blog, there are a number of plugins you can use to put the Facebook Like/Recommend button at the bottom of each post, but we use the SNV Facebook Like Button plugin on both the Tourism Tech Corner and the Indiana Insider Blog. It’s simple, customizable and works like a charm! As you can see on the Tourism Tech Corner main page and each of the posts, a simple Recommend button shows up below each post. Click it and a link to the post will be fed to your Facebook Profile for your friends to see.
Facebook has made it very easy to add some of their social features to your website or blog. Both the website code and the WordPress plugin include the number of people who clicked the like button, so you can see just how viral your content is becoming!
If you want to implement even more of Facebook’s Social Plugins, check out their Social Plugins Developers page. Have you implemented Facebook’s Like/Recommend button on your site yet?
Jeremy, thanks for the post. I stumbled across this when searching Google to find out how I could integrate some new design techniques/concepts that other social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have already done. The great thing about re-using ideas like this is — a large user base already understands the functionality and will be able to easily use it on your site when implemented.
Phenocal
http://phenocalfatloss.livejournal.com
Nice blog. You’re article was spot on. Will you be writing a follow up article up on this? I’ve bookmarked your page.
Great write up. http://www.computect.net
Jeremy, this is exactly what I was looking for to add to my blog, just wasn’t sure how to to it. This is easy and simple explained. http://omowaliisidore.com
it works ! thx
Nice blog post, thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing i just added it in the blog. it looks nice..h
ttp://www.easylifteqpt.com/product/drum-haulers_with_lift,_clamp_and_side_or_forward_rotation/
I’ve added it to my main blog and it not only looks nice, but also I noticed an increase in visitors.
Thanks a lot. I was wondering how to integrate FB button on my blog. Sounds easy to do.
I thought about installing one today. Thanks for explaining this is a simple way.
Thanks Jeremy. I have a site about nutrition and wanted my facebook fans to be displayed on my blog. Now I know how to do it.
I had been looking for a Facebook ‘Like’ plugin, as I did not want to mess with codes on my blog. Thanks for mentioning the ‘SNV Facebook Like Button’ – I’m checking it out right away.
I wish there was also a plugin for placing the Facebook comments on a blog.
Thanks.
@f4c55d1059686a85c80181f8bbb67be6:disqus – there actually are several plugins for Facebook Comments.: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facebook-comments-for-wordpress/, http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facebook-comments/
Do you think many people click to that button? After reading your article I have placed facebook like button on my blog, but I don’t see much visitor’s activity. What do you recon, how to encourage visitors to click it?
I’m a bit late to the party, but I just added the Facebook “Like” button to my blog. Fortunately, the directions for using the button haven’t changed since it was first released 2 years ago. Cheers!