Why the Facebook Like Button Might Not Be Right for Your Blog
I read a blog post today that distressed me greatly. The post was about the new Facebook like button and the poster was explaining to readers why the Like button was not right for everyone. Darn. I knew that. I should have posted it and explained why first! Maybe I can make up for being tardy on information by providing additional information that might explain better what has already been said on another blog.
What does the Facebook Like Button do?
The Facebook like button can be embedded into any website and allows visitors to share content over Facebook. When content is shared, the link is displayed in the News Feed (the ‘what’s on your mind’ field) with a thumbnail and description. Shared links have potential to bring in social networking traffic from the Facebook friends of the sharer or liker if you will.
Think of the Like button as an external extension of the internal like feature Facebook has for liking content items within Facebook (like groups, photos, status updates, etc.).
More is Not Always Better
The possibility of more traffic from social networking sites? Sounds great. What could possibly be a drawback of that? Well, first of all, you must identify whether users will be prone to Facebook Liking the content on your particular site. Facebook is a social network for friends. Many people who are friends on Facebook have seen and have relationships with each other IRL (in real life aka not only on the Internet). With that being understood, there are a few things that should be considered:
- Many niche blogs and websites provide content that may be embarrassing when shared between friends. Examples: A lose weight blog, a blog on getting rid of hemorrhoids, a religious blog, a blog that has explicit content, etc.
- Many blogs and websites have provide content that is too specialized to be shared between friends. Example: Forex, stock blogs, science blogs, company blogs, etc.
- Some blogs however, provide content that is not embarrassing or too specialized. Examples: music blogs, political blogs, lifestyle blogs, news blogs etc.
The type of content of your blog or website should be the deciding factor when deciding whether to install the Like button. Ask yourself if you would be prone to sharing content on your blog to friends of yours. Ask yourself if posts on your blog are capable of making small-talk between friends. I have decided that the content on Blogtap does not meet that criteria (I doubt many of my friends have an interest in the top features in WordPress 3.0 or even know what WordPress is) so I will not be installing the Like button on this blog.
Although many cyber friends share many of the same interests and hobby niches, IRL friends (which make up the majority of Facebook friends) do not. Avoid cluttering your website with just another useless button by carefully considering whether it is appropriate for visitors based on the type of content of your website.
Tags: content, niche blogging, social media, traffic
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In times of social media, where everyone wants his/her blog content to be spreaded widely, I don’t think people will really think is Facebook Like Button appropriate or not. From the point of view of blogs user, I personally like the posibility of sharing once I find something particularly interesting. On the other hand, yes, you are right – sometimes sharing content may be embarassing or unpleasant for others, but is it really blogger concern or maybe user concern to decide what can be wrong to share with others taking into the account friends reaction?
You came out with good points but if you have friends in your facebook related to your niche then sharing on social media can bring you benefits…