"Like" button titled "Recommend" via a plug-in.

The “Like” button-a creation nurtured and escalated by Facebook and a tool used by thousands on a daily basis. What does it do? The “Like” button is a feature that allows you to like a post, comment, article, as well as many other resources. This action produces a post on your Facebook News Feed, broadcasting the item to your friends. “Like” button plug-ins can be installed just about anywhere; you can even incorporate one on your corporate page. A few scenarios in which the “Like” button might be used are demonstrated below:

Scenario 1: I “Like” the Facebook Fan Page for O.A.R., a band that I enjoy seeing in concert every year. This will show up on my Facebook page, as well as on my friends’ News Feeds, saying “Jessica likes O.A.R.” The “O.A.R.” term will become a clickable link to that band’s fan page.

Sharing a link from an organization's page.

Scenario 2: It’s Stanley Cup Playoffs and my status says “LET’S GO CAPITALS!’; I have a lot of friends that live in DC. Ten of them “Like” my status. This status then shows up as the most popular item on the News Feed, possibly driving traffic to the Capitals Fan Page, to their site, to NHL.com, etc.

Scenario 3: I’m reading an article on CNN about the World’s Most Scenic Cruises. As a travel and adventure seeker, I find this article helpful and interesting and choose to “Like” that CNN article through their built-in “Like” button. This then appears on my Facebook News Feed, guiding interested friends to take a look at this article. Additionally, if I’m viewing that article on CNN (or other pages with a “Like” button), the plug-in will say how many people on Facebook “Like” that article.

You can gather from the above scenarios that this tool is used to share content or information. It is easy to imagine from these examples how quickly information can travel and get picked up. So, how can sharing content like this help your organization?

If you are utilizing the Parature for Facebook application, you may have already witnessed this happen firsthand, depending on your clientele. Useful Knowledgebase articles or links that you post on your Fan Page may be picked up by your customers and re-shared. Friends of your customers that share these items may then proceed to these links or information. This drives traffic back to your own Fan Page. Friends of your customers are more likely to trust posts made by their friends than to come across the original post or page on their own.

Posting statuses on your Fan Page will also reel in customers, as the posts show up on their News Feed. If you’re having a promotion or a contest, for instance, it is a great idea to post that as a status with more information. If the customer is interested they will click back to your page. Additionally, they may also be inclined to re-post your status, broadcasting the information to their friends and potential customers.

In an article at *searchengineland.com titled “By The Numbers: How Facebook Says Likes & Social Plugins Help Websites”, the author talks about the Facebook “Like” button, showing different statistics on improved traffic. Some significant bullet point statistics of note are:

• “ABCNews.com, Washington Post and The Huffington Post are said to have more than doubled their referral traffic from Facebook since adding social plug-ins.”
• “Levi’s saw a 40 times increase in referral traffic from Facebook after implementing the Like button in April 2010 and has maintained those levels since.”
• “The average media site integrated with Facebook has seen a 300% increase in referral traffic.”

As is evidence from the above, sharing and promoting your organization through Facebook Fan Pages and the like has proven to increase business and traffic. It helps to create a buzz around your Fan Page or website, guiding this audience to your organization, and helping you find potential new customers. And if all the traffic isn’t enough motivation, it’s free marketing!

If you’re looking to promote your organization, drive traffic, and even cut back on cost, installing a “Like” button plug-in on your website and promoting your content through your Facebook Fan Page is a strategy you can align with your business objectives. What’s your take on sharing through “Like?” We’d like to know!

*Danny Sullivan. “By The Numbers: How Facebook Says Likes & Social Plugins Help Websites”. searchengineland.com.May 22, 2011. June 22, 2011. http://searchengineland.com/by-the-numbers-how-facebook-says-likes-social-plugins-help-websites-76061.