Adding a Facebook Like button
to a website is relatively easy, because the social network simplified
the process to ensure that the Like function would become ubiquitous on
the Web.
What Does the Facebook Like Button Do?
It's a small, clickable
icon that lets people indicate that they "like" or enjoy any item of
content. Clicking a Like button on Facebook sends a notice to your
friends News Feed that you've made an approving click for
something--page, app, comment, whatever. Any page you've "liked" also
gets listed in your profile under "Activities and Interests."
Facebook lets other websites add Like buttons that do the same thing for
their visitors--send notices back to Facebook for friends' news feeds
and profile areas saying the person "likes" something.
So if someone clicks the Like Button on your website, it allows that
person to share some of what they are thinking or doing on your site
back with friends on Facebook. Basically, it posts a link and/or a
comment to that page on their Facebook profile page
Technically, a bridge or link between your website and Facebook's is
being created in the background when you add Facebook Like buttons to
your site.
Code Snippet Is What Adds "Likes" to Your Site
Facebook offers a like-button code generator that automatically gives
you two little snippets of code which you insert into your website to
display the Facebook Like button. Facebook calls the code snippets
social plug-ins, but they are more commonly known on the web as widgets.
You just add each snippet of code provided by Facebook into the HTML
of your web page. One snippet goes on the page where you want the Like
Button to appear, the other is an Open Graph tag that goes into the
header
area of your home page's html code.
After you're done, if a user clicks the Like button and happens to be
signed into Facebook at that time, a link to your web page or content
on your site will appear back on that user's Wall on Facebook and be
seen in their friend's News Feeds.
Adding a Facebook Like Button in 7 Easy Steps
- Step 1. Visit Facebook's Like Button page for developers.
Decide what content on your site you want to associate or link to the
Like Button. Copy that URL into the form on the like button creation
page.
- Step 2. Pick the design and layout of the Like Button that
you want for your page. Options include the size and layout of the text
and button, and whether you want the number of "likes" to show. Click
"Show Faces" if you want profile photos of everyone who "likes" your
content to appear next to the like button.
- Step 3. Pick the language you want to appear next to your Like button. You can have "recommend" instead of "like," for example.
- Step 4. Click "Get Code" and select whether you want iFrame
or XFBMF/JavaScript code. IFrame may be simpler, because XFBMF requires
a user to have some JavaScript code installed on their computer, but
either will work for most users. XFBMF has some extra features, such as
allowing users to submit comments and showing profile photos.
- Step 5. Copy the resulting code and paste it into the HTML
code on your own Website, on the page where you want the Like button to
show.
- Step 6. Continue filling out the form on Facebook's like
button creation page to get the other code you need. Provide your site
URL and select the "open graph" tag type that will describe the content
your like button is associated with on your site.
- Step 7. Type your Facebook ID, the numerical ID associated
with your Facebook account, into the "admin" field. It's a long
numerical string that starts with "fbid=" followed by numbers. (Sign
into Facebook and right click on any photo to see your Facebook ID.)
Finally, click "get tags" and copy the resulting code into the area
after the tag of the HTML at the top of your site's home page.