Last month, Facebook made a major change to the way its Like button works. Previously when you hit the Like button, only a link to the story would appear on your wall and in your network news feed. Now, the title of the story appears with a thumbnail and a blurb gets posted to your wall when you Like something. You also can comment on the link if you like. In short, the Like button now has the same functionality as if you posted the link to your wall yourself.

This update fundamentally gives the Like button a more significant role in sharing your message. Because a release that one of your fans Likes will now be displayed more prominently on Facebook, a valuable side effect should be increased traffic to your site. Fortunately for PrestoSports clients, showing the Like button on your releases is one of the many Options available to you.

PrestoSports clients are able to track this data because we show Facebook interaction reports in our admin system in the Marketing tab.  So you not only see how many people visited your site through traditional website traffic stats, you can also see how many people Liked it, commented on it, and shared it.

Since the new functionality of the Like button overlaps with the share button, you might start to see a decrease in the number of shares. Either way, the  total number of interactions is the key number here.

Showing the Facebook Like button is just one of many Options currently available. The PrestoSports system is very powerful and allows us to support Options to help each of our clients make their site function exactly as they would like. Using Options, you can customize details on your site that affect releases, headlines, video, photos, your mobile site, and more.

As we make improvements to our system-provided templates, Options allow you to immediately implement these new features without adjustments to your site. You simply turn the Options on or off as desired.

We take pride in the high level of customization we offer to our clients. Be sure to take advantage!