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Facebook’s Like button branches out

Amelia Baer
  • Amelia Baer
  • October 3, 2014
Facebook’s Like button branches out

At Facebook’s f8 conference in April, a ubiquitous like button was demonstrated and the doors opened for content to find its way to Facebook—regardless if it lives on an app or mobile website. This week the tool went live with an open-call for developers to join the movement of bringing social sharing to every experience on a smartphone or tablet. The social media giant is committing to mobile by harnessing powerful mobile APIs to increase visibility and permeate both developers’ and users’ mobile interactions.

The mobile like button welcomes third-party app developers to integrate with Facebook on the fly. Native apps are often viewed as walled content, unlike mobile web where users can move between sites with ease. Developers can now add a social sharing element to their in-app experiences in a mutually beneficial friendship between Facebook and the native app.

People using mobile apps can directly “Like” the app’s Facebook Page, like any Open Graph object within the app, and share on Facebook.

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Facebook offers developers a guiding hand to ideally implement the like button into their user interfaces with a how-to post, entitled “Getting started with the Like Button in your mobile app”. The company aims to help developers meet their users at the perfect moment for optimal engagement—in a gaming app, a Like button could appear when a user reaches a certain milestone, rather than appearing immediately upon logging into the application.

Mobile users are social beings—it’s proven repeatedly with studies on how users spend time on their smartphones and tablets. Users also expect efficient and seamless experiences—the new Like Button will do just that. While in a native application, users can “Like” content to share on their News Feed and transition back without ever truly losing their place in the app.

Just as the share button has lent new visibility to content across the web, Facebook’s new mobile like button aims to revolutionize the way developers promote their apps on social and engage with share-happy users on mobile. As Facebook continues to expand its footprint on mobile, the mobile native Like button is a way to branch out into third-party developers’ creations.

By the way—don’t forget to “share” this post with the button below.

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