What you should "Like" about Facebook Integration on TypePad

Facebook Like connects your blog to millions of people on Facebook and we have the fancy graphs to prove it!  For those of you who haven't considered integrating the Facebook Like buttons into your blog, you may want to take a look at these stats and give it a second thought. TypePad has full integration of the Facebook Like button, both for your blog sidebar and your post footer, so there's no reason to not give it a try.

When we introduced Facebook Like for the blog sidebar, allowing any reader from Facebook to "Like" your blog and receive post updates directly in their news streams, over 1500 bloggers installed the widget leading to an overall 50% increase of referral traffic from Facebook to all TypePad blogs. This is, as we say, a good thing.

Referral Traffic from Facebook Like

But wait, it gets even better! After hearing all of your requests we added the Facebook Like button for the post footer in a second release, allowing readers to "Like" just a post and share that update with their Facebook networks. Turns out that considerably boosted traffic as well. Within a few weeks, over 2,400 bloggers added this widget and referral traffic from Facebook has increased by 200%.

As you can tell, there's no denying that readership on Facebook can have a  powerful impact on a blog's traffic with the right tools. TypePad bloggers such as Andrew Bleiman of Zooborns.com and Jennifer of realia reported in the Everything TypePad comments some healthy growth in their traffic numbers since they added the "Like" button. We encourage the rest of you to try it out and let us know if you see any fruitful results!

Comments

[A Twitter User]

I've added the like button to the bottom of my posts, but I haven't added it to my blog, because the Facebook integration feature in the TypePad Dashboard still doesn't work for me. I never see the dialog boxes for step #2.

[Denise Wakeman]

Are there any plans to add the Like feature to pages? I'd "like" to see that as well.

blog on!

[Granita]

I'm just getting started. Maybe there is something that I can do from my end. I'll work on that.

[Account Deleted]

I've read everything I can about Facebook's ethics, I've listened to video news conferences held by Facebook's owner and read the transcripts. I simply cannot get on board with their repeated ethical breaches. In fact, I got "off board" on Quit Facebook Day which was May 31.

I'm not naive enough to believe that the small percent of bloggers who quit Facebook will quell the hemorrhage of "F" buttons that have cropped up everywhere.
It makes me a bit queasy tho' that industry insiders such as Six Apart so fully embrace Facebook, certainly helping the owner in his desire to surpass the 1 billion dollar profit that he boasts _he turned down_ for selling Facebook.

I have a request. As soon as possible please give me a way to remove the "nag" button on my dashboard urging me to sign (back) up for Facebook connect.

I went to great lengths to remove myself from the myriad Facebook connects through the long and winding path I take around the 'net each day.
I would be peeved to no end if I accidentally signed up again because of an intrusive Facebook button on my TypePad dashboard.

I have nothing against folks who wish to continue their relationship with Facebook. I don't however want to be harangued about _me_ being involved with them.

Thanks bunches,
Cyn

[Ed Vielmetti]

I'm using Chroma based themes on every blog that I've touched recently, and I don't see this in any of the menus that are obvious for that.

The "customize" piece reads

Banner
Custom Sidebar
Custom CSS

but no place for "post footer". Or maybe I'm missing a menu. tnx

[David Jacobs]

"I don't see this in any of the menus that are obvious for that."

Do you mean obvious for disabling "Likes," or enabling them?

[Kofla Olivieri]

So far is working ok for me.

[Ed Vielmetti]

For enabling them; it looks like the

http://vielmetti.typepad.com

has everything properly enabled both for liking the whole blog + for liking any given post, so it's working for what I want to do with it.

(Ah, note to self, need to re-add my Google Analytics tracking - I lost a few days of it with the redesign.)

[Anastasia]

Although I'm not a great Facebook fan - I don't play online games - most of my friends are there and I'm glad to be able to share my TypePad blogs with them. I've also added the Facebook Like button to the sidebar of my blog and I am considering adding it to the post footer as well.

[Account Deleted]

Why don't you use the Wibiya "sharing toolbar" for your footer instead.....it's way much better than Typepad's own footer. Go to www.wibiya.com for details and installation instructions.

I added it to my blog, and so far I'm more impressed with it than Typepad's own header toolbar and footer

[Lavrusik]

Is the 200% the total increase across all the blogs that added it? What's the sample size?

[LAVA KAFLE]

great facility

[Account Deleted]

One thing with the Pico theme in dark blue- you can't really make out the number of 'Likes' as the number is dark grey...
Maybe wanna change the numeral colour to white or something brighter? Ta.

[Account Deleted]

This doesn't work for me, either, although this may be a Facebook issue because I was not able to set the widget the way I wanted it. E.g., I would say I wanted 150 pixels and only the number of followers to display, but it would generate the same code (450 pixels wide and some words rather than just the number) every time. Any thoughts as to what's going on here?

Thanks.

Kevin

[Tiff (TypePad Team)]

Hi Kevin. Are you referring to the Like button on the footer or the blog sidebar? Are you trying to add it to your blog using Facebook's code or our in-app integration flows?

If your sidebar is 250px wide or more, the like button will automatically appear displaying the text + avatars, while if it's less than 250px wide it will revert to the button with the numbers only.

If you are adding the like button to the post footer using TypePad it should only display as the button and the numbers.

[Kristin Palermo]

I'm wondering if anyone can help me figure out why the counter starts at 22 or 7,026 when I put the Like button in my blog sidebar? It seems to be replicating the example button shown on the information page when you sign up; whatever number is there is the number that ends up appearing on my blog. I also tried the generator and it did the same exact thing!

[Tiff (TypePad Team)]

Hi Kristin. Are you adding the button using TypePad or adding the code from Facebook manually (from the information page that you describe)? I'm also not sure what you're referring to as the generator. Let me know and I can hopefully help you out!

[Kristin Palermo]

Hi, Tiff. I tried adding it two or three times. First time was through Typepad FB Like set-up and the others were with Embed HTML using code generated here ...

http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like

Seems like they're still working out a lot of bugs with this widget. I would love to get it sorted out, but then I'm wondering if I should wait a while until there are fewer problems with it.

Thanks!

[Account Deleted]

facebook.

[Lilolu]

I've tried it and Love it.

[Bonnie Jones]

I just tried adding the sidebar "like" button and the post footer (using the directions that are linked to in the article). Neither will appear:(
I'm using Safari 10.5. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Bonnie

[Emily Andros]

I haven't figured it out yet either....but i'll let you know if and when i do! Emily

[Jiri Sram]

EU-SHOP
http://svispm.wpenize.cz
http://bit.ly/JiriSram

[healthy_blogging]

I'm very impressed with Facebook's "Like" button, I have a steadily increasing number of likes for my website. Is it possible to know who the users are?