The Facebook Like button has been added to over 350,000 sites with over 3 million Likes a day. This simple little button has changed the way that we share information as once we click that button we are committing being connected to that page. In order to keep up with this continued popularity, Facebook has added some new features to the Like button to enhance the social experience for users as well tracking stats for administrators.
The new features include:
- Like and Comment (iFrame version only)
- Publish to users Graph API for single and multiple pages
- Advanced Analytics
Iframe Commenting
Users will now be able to like and then add a comment to their like (must be using layout="standard" with wide of button is at least 450 pixels). Once a comment is added, the user's profile is updated with a larger and more prominent story. This is not only showcasing what the user likes to their friends, Facebook is capturing data to better assist advertisers with targeting their ads.
Publishing via Graph API
The communication, or lack there of for some brands, on Facebook is what has set brands apart. The ability to talk with and not at your customers is what keeps them coming back. Updating the pages with publishing special deals, coupons, events, local community information has just gotten easier by adding Open Graph tags. To publish an update, click on Admin Link to use the publisher.
Open Graph tags on your Web page are treated as a Facebook page as when a user clicks the "Like" button the connection is made between the user and your brand. Your page appears on the users profile page as "Likes and Interests" and, as stated above, allows for publishing updates to the user.
Administrate multiple pages? The Graph API allows for publishing to multiple pages with the fb:app_id
tag specified on the Web page and an access token for your application.
Advanced Facebook Like Analytics
The new features have included the ref
and source
parameters for admins to A/B test different types and placements of the Like button. In addition, the source parameter provides where the user came from and story type.
According to Austin Haugen
We sanitize referrer URLs from Facebook to protect user privacy, but this parameter allows us to remove personally identifiable information while still exposing anonymous, yet useful data for developers interested in tracking and optimizing the performance of their Like buttons.
The analytics and the ability to test placement of the Like button on pages is a welcomed addition as we all have been scrolling up and down pages to find the like button. A set standard place does not exist so for a brand to see where users for their page like it best is definitely going to increase the amount of likes. We have to see it to like it.
What do you think? Will users like and comment? Do these new features seem useful or just another means of Facebook capturing data to target advertising?
photo credit: mashable