This guest post was written by Rikard Kjellberg, a Silicon Valley blogger who works on social syndication solutions for publishers. If you have webmaster or WordPress knowledge and are interested in writing a post for WordPress Hacks, please contact us.
You may have noticed that Facebook social plugins are everywhere these days with the popular ”Like” button, primarily because of its ease of use and how it integrates with the social graph. This is because the button represents a one-time sharing event vs. establishing a lasting connection with your readers. Now imagine instead how you could get ongoing updates on topics that interest you!
A recent addition to the WordPress plugin directory does just that! Facebook Like for Tags transforms the Like button into a personalized user connection for ongoing updates and sharing based on tags or categories.
For example, say you have a travel blog. One day you write about southern France. In your post you assign categories “Europe” and “France” to the post. Some of your readers really enjoy the article and share it in Facebook by clicking on the Like button. Some time later, you again write about France. Those readers who had “Liked” the previous article will now get an update automatically in their Facebook News Feed!
Since the automatic update is based on user interest, it will be relevant to the user and thereby more likely to grab attention. The result is more revisits to your site and more reach into Facebook due to additional sharing. Over time you will commonly see in excess of 25% more page views.
A more detailed description of the plugin and installation can be found here. Grab Facebook Like for Tags today and transform the Like button into a trusted recommendations engine!
Disclosure: I am co-founder of IngBoo, the provider of this WordPress plugin and the cloud-based change-detect-notification service that powers the function.
Rikard Kjellberg
Rikard is the co-founder of IngBoo, a social syndication solution for bloggers and publishers. Rikard also writes on his personal blog (scandihuvians) and on IngBoo's corporate blog.
awesome tips thanks so much for the great post. 
Great list and very thorough!
When was the last time this list was updated? Are they all still relevant today seeing ...
Hey,
You can also use the below plugin which adds a tick box when creating the page asking if you want ...
Great post. I wish more people thought about this kind of thing.
I agree that it does feel a bit ...
i Agree with Hillary Bost 
awesome article. Thanks for sharing with us. 
Hey Rikard
Must say very useful plugin but have couple of doubts:
You mean when a use will click on like button on a post he will also become a fan of the fan page??
So he won’t be getting update from other categories or will he be getting the update from other categories?
The Like button becomes a direct link between your site and the Facebook News Feed of your reader. There is no Fan Page (i.e., proxy) in between. Whenever there is a new post for the categories you had previously defined, that update is pushed automatically to the news feed.
And, yes, updates are pushed based on categories/tags. The whole idea here is that you avoid the catch-all scenario and thereby improve relevance for the user. That results in more revisits, typically 10x.
If you want to offer a Like button for your full feed, we recommend inserting an HTML iFrame as a WordPress Text widget. If you want that too, send us an email at support@ingboo.com and we will help you.
So, both options are available and both options can co-exist. Hope this helps!
interesting. How does this play out with Facebook’s terms of service? Will they not have an issue with it?
Do other sites use the like button in this manner to subscribe a user to a whole category of future news outside of the WordPress arena?
Dave, thanks for your thoughts and questions. This service is in full compliance with Facebook terms of service and uses the Open Graph API. If you are interested in learning more about this, you can visit their developer section on the topic at: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/opengraph#publishing .
Also, there is a discussion around this on their blog at http://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/397 .
As for your last question, yes, we have over 300 partners who use the IngBoo service, connected to Facebook and other destinations, like Twitter. For example, check with http://www.technorati.com in the next few days, you will see Facebook Like for article search. However, Facebook has been an option from the start.
I hope I was able to answer your questions, let me know otherwise.
thanks for the additional info, will be giving it a go!
thanks for the additional info, will be giving it a go!
Dave, thanks for giving us a try. I strongly recommend reading the full instructions at http://www.ingboo.com/pvm/plugin .
Also, setting a custom logo is recommended. That is how your brand will shine in the Facebook News Feed. The instructions provide detail on how that is done.
Very informative and helpful. Thaks very much.
I do see a problem with this: they did like the one post but they did not sign up for receiving updates on the category. For the moment it will work, but in the longer run it will put you in hot water.
Now, I *do* like the idea of being able to ‘sign’ up for a category on a blog – i myself have different areas which people might like but not the other – but don’t underestimate how people do not understand why they see your stuff when they just signed up for one like.
Nicole, very good points and definately aspects that you always should consider. When your reader clicks “Like” he/she expresses an interest. In addition, it defines a connection, a relationship reflected on the user’s wall. That is just basic Facebook functionality.
We have provided a solution that allows you to derive benefit from this relationship while providing value to your readers. Properly applied, it improves relevancy for the reader. We think this is appreciated, a value-add that you provide your audience.
Sounds very useful.
Will try it out at our projects.
nice plugin for wordpress. it will really increase traffic to our site through facebook, i will try this plugin for my wordpress blog site. thanks for this post.
I tried a lot of plugins for social media, but this one is really awesome.
I recently added this feature and it seemed to be working well, then it said there was an update so I selected automatically update. I am not sure when it changed, but now it seems like there is a problem. Most of my posts list 6 likes, and when another one is added nothing changes. Do you know what could be the problem.
Joy and others, Facebook has an issue that is currently blocking any updates to news feeds. This has been going on for almost 48 hours (as of 11/11/2010 at 8.50 am PDT). They say they are working on it. A lot of people and applications are impacted by this. This is very unfortunate but we are confident that Facebook will get it fixed shortly. We (IngBoo) will send out an update to all of our partner sites to inform about this.
According to Facebook, the issue will be fixed and rolled out on Saturday 11/13/2010 around noon. There is a bug for this at Facebook. You can follow it here: http://bugs.developers.facebook.net/show_bug.cgi?id=13453
Needless to say, many application developers and users are impacted by this. The good thing is that the Like button and the plugin work and have not been impacted. It is the subsequent updates that are impacted.
Sounds very useful.
Will try it out at our projects…
This is a really good plugin. I am sure it will drive a lot of traffic from Facebook users. Good one, will check it out right after this.
Sounds very useful.
Will try it out at our projects.
I am having my site automatically broadcast to both my fan page and personal wall. Would you recommend removing it from the personal wall or not? I am seeing about 35% clicks coming from facebook.
Joshua, if your personal friends read your blog, by all means, send your feed to your facebook wall.
What we are proposing is that you consider the purpose of your fan page:
A. Is it a relationship tool (we believe so)?
B. Is it a syndication channel?
Don’t use it for both. If you choose to use it as a relationship tool then Like for Tags is an ideal tool for content syndication.
As for your 35% clicks form Facebook, I assume you mean referrals?
The trend is that more and more referrals come from Facebook, thereby deterioating the return from SEO since you have fewer referrals from search (e.g., Google, Bing, etc.).
It’ very tough to put buttons on blog with coding that time this plugins helps us. Thanks for suggesting.
didn’t know about this plugin. thanks for sharing will look forward to get in touch with this plugin.
This plugin really takes the like button to the next level! Also, I have like buttons on my posts and pages, do you have a recommendation for a like button for my site? Thanks!
Tags WordPress plugin is very usefull for SEO. My position in Google increased when i installed thid plugin.
is a really good plugin. but mine’s did not bring trafic from facebook but i hope in the future it will bring thx , im new in blogin
This isn’t suprise. WordPress is very good tool for SEO and many people have blog on WordPress so Facebook must like it.
what happened with the facebook like button. I used to find it here, but now it disappeard: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/
Facebook is constantly changing how things are done. Hard to keep track.
Thanks for the post.
I agree the fact that it is a very useful trick, but I’d have the same concerns as another commenter suggested: when you click on the “like” button on a post you will also become a fan of that fan page?
Hey thanks for presenting this usefull article…i will now use the facebook like button on my blog…