Facebook have announced that their ‘like’ button is now to become universal allowing anyone to add the feature to their website. Any user visiting the site can instantly share the page, blog post, image, music track etc with all of their Facebook friends, with every ‘like’ submitted adding to a tailored experience for each user during their time in Facebook.
But what does this mean for businesses? Well, placing top in search results used to be the top goal for a lot of companies, but now people and their interests are becoming the biggest drivers of traffic to websites. Take a moment to think of how many times you’ve seen a friend sharing a link on Facebook and you’ve clicked through to it either because it interests you, you’re curious as to what they’ve posted or, let’s face it, you’re bored and looking for something to do! How many of those links would you have come across if it were just you in the driving seat? From ads like T-Mobile’s Flashmob to music service Spotify and even to internet sensation Susan Boyle, none of these would have become as immensely popular if it hadn’t been for people sharing the links online through the likes of Facebook and Twitter. By opening its doors and making the web instantly viral, Facebook has begun to create one of the largest advertisement networks going, and inviting your friends along for the ride!
What about the user? As long as the user has recently logged into Facebook, they can click the like button and the site will be shared instantly. If there has been some time since their last activity on Facebook, or they have specifically logged out, then a pop-up box will appear and the user will be asked to provide their log-in credentials.
By taking this step, the internet may become organised through the portal of Facebook. Over the coming weeks Facebook will start to include liked interests in the user’s profile, allowing more access and targeted advertising through a user’s profile. Facebook’s advertising system is already intellectual allowing advertiser’s to drill down to specific criteria, e.g. 18-24 year old single males within the Glasgow area, with ‘travel’ and ‘sports’ in their interest. With this universal liking coming about, and the future of an integrated Facebook chat bar on any website, targeted advertising will become more accurate and be hitting the bulls-eye!
As you can see, Percepta has integrated the ‘like’ feature into our blog, so why not try it out for yourself and you’ll see how easy it is to like anything across the web! Feel free to leave me your comments about this latest feature from Facebook, and how you think the internet will react?