I’m not a developer. I’m a social media enthusiast and marketer who has a passion for branding and UX. So, I’m going to take a look at this from a different vantage point -- that of addressing how companies and brands can use Facebook's new tools to encourage conversations on the social web.

1. Socially Exposed & Likeable A Look at Facebook’s Like Button & Other Tools for Brands Created by Alicia Benjamin, Social Media Manager at MeYou Health meyouhealth.com

2. More to Liking: Beyond Pushing Buttons Long gone are the days of pushing a single button to “like” or fan a page. Facebook now offers several tools and plug-ins to drive real-time conversation, grant brands personalization opportunities (and great user experience) and offer the ability for people to comment on your content – multiple times. They call this the Open Graph initiative. From Mark Zuckerburg himself at f8, “These connections aren't just happening on Facebook, they're happening all over the Web, and today with the Open Graph we're bringing all these things together," Zuckerberg said. "We're going to connect all of those different graphs together to form the Open Graph, and when we connect all of those graphs together, the Web is going to get a whole lot better.”

3. From Fans to Likers? We’re used to liking our friend’s activities, comments, links and photos on Facebook. But what does it mean when the Like button is taken out of Facebook? Not surprisingly, the Like button outside of Facebook works just like it does inside of Facebook: it allows you to show your approval for a piece of content, photo, website, product, etc. with a single click – depending on how that website or company uses the button. What’s more, you can include a note to express why you like the item, if this feature is enabled, and get valuable approval from your social network before making the purchase. For example: Levi’s enables the button and comments on individual products or sub-brands, so essentially you can like a pair of Levin’s cut-off Jean shorts without actually liking the company.

4. It’s cool (and fun) to like stuff. Internally, Facebook still refers to you as "fans.“ But on the outside, the Like button has started to take over the web. Even Mark Zuckerburg himself predicted that over 1 million like buttons would disperse across the web within 24 hours of its launch. That was on April 21, 2010. There’s also the Recommend button, which functions just like the Like button. This works well for media coverage, breaking news stories or industry articles, since it’s more relevant and acceptable to recommend a story covering the BP oil spill, for instance, than to say you “like” it. Both the Like and Recommend button can drive social activity and push potential customers to your website, as well as drive repeat visits from current fans. No wonder many brands have been quick to adopt both.

5. Example of Using the Like Button If you’re a site already known for reviews or ratings, of course you’re going to like that the Like button gives your users one more way to express themselves… and for you, that means that a simple activity will, in turn, push their friends and family to your site. Win win! "The Like button from Facebook gives our travel community an additional way to easily express their preferences and perfectly complements what TripAdvisor is known and loved for -- real reviews and opinions from millions of travelers worldwide," said Steve Kaufer, founder and CEO of TripAdvisor. On Yelp The activity on my Facebook profile will link back to the site, depending on how they set up the meta data. Notice, Yelp pushes to both the business page and the main site, whereas Foursquare chooses to push only to the business page. On Foursquare

6. 3 must-do’s for your brand

7. Step 1: Learn to love the Like button There’s a new Like button in town. And it’s not the single button people click on to join your Facebook page. It’s much more robust than that. Regardless of if you joined the Quit Facebook Day, more and more people are signing up every day. And with Facebook’s social plug-ins and features, more and more brands have to learn to love the Like button; it’s going to drive interaction. If you need further convincing, check out the stats: Facebook is the No. 1 social network in the world. Facebook has 500 million active users (half log in daily). Facebook is used 55 minutes per day per user. Facebook has tremendous global reach, with 70% of users located outside the U.S. Facebook has immense potential for social shopping, as 68% of users said they were more likely to purchase a product on a positive Facebook friend referral. More interaction = greater opportunity!

8. Step 2: Put the Like button everywhere & be smart with your meta data Products, sub-brands, articles, blog posts, photos, contest pages… The key to driving people back to your website is to utilize the Like button and be smart with your meta data. Meta data will determine what shows up on a user’s Facebook wall once they “like” something on your website or blog. And you want this to link back to the very thing they like, as well as your website. This creates double opportunity that people will click through to your site and have a positive experience with your brand. After all, friends of the “liker” can see exactly what they need to know: what the friend has chosen to “like” and from where he/she likes it. For example: You Tube’s thumbs up button links back to Facebook to push content consumption.

9. Step 3: Give people reasons to like you Not everyone can be The Onion or Conan. But that doesn’t mean people won’t like your company, your website or your content. Just give them a reason – or over a thousand reasons, if not hundreds of thousands – to like you on more than one occasion. Use Facebook’s like button on individual product pages, separate blog posts, pictures in your gallery, sub-brand pages, web comics – anything and everything you can think of. Missed Opportunity: For instance, Yelp could drive greater likeability by putting the Like button on every ROTD (Review of the Day), because it’s such a hot feature among their community. Does it Right: From their homepage, Levi’s pushes people to a page in which they can see Facebook recent activity, friends’ activity and hundreds of products to “like,” along with the company.

10. Who can benefit from the Like button? Every business can! But most notably, here’s a list of businesses that would benefit greater from higher conversations and interactions: Non-profits Local businesses and news sites Start-ups Community, music, art events Online movie or music databases

11. Other FacebookTools for Brands

12. Comments Widget You can add this to any page to drive conversations on your page and push individual comments to a person’s Facebook wall. This works great for product pages but can also be used on your blog in conjunction with a commenting plug-in, like Disqus. According to Facebook’s Developer’s blog, “With the Comments Box, Facebook users on your site can comment on your content, post those comments to their profiles, and share them with their friends on Facebook. The Comments Box allows non-Facebook users to make comments on your site as well. And via our APIs, you can access related comments made on Facebook as well to bring the conversation together.”

13. Live Stream This allows you to show real-time conversations, and lets the person toggle between seeing everyone’s comments or just friend comments. This is great for live events, product launches and webinars. “Live Stream allows visitors to chat about your event in real time and share their chat on their Facebook Wall and news feed. What makes this powerful is that it draws your supporters’ friends into the event in a way that feels natural.” - John Haydon, Socialbrite According to the Facebook Developer’s forum, “The Live Stream plugin lets users visiting your site or application share activity and comments in real time. The Live Stream Box works best when you are running a real-time event, like live streaming video for concerts, speeches, or webcasts, live Web chats, webinars, massively multiplayer games.”

14. Activity Feed See what users of your site like the most or find the most interesting. It’s also good for showcasing the most recent article comments on your blog. The activity feed displays stories both when users like content on your site and when users share content from your site back to Facebook. “This plugin is a big deal for news outlets like Geek.com as it allows them to provide their visitors with personalized recommendations based on what their friends are reading. For example, if you’re logged in to Facebook, you can now see the items your friends are sharing, recommending, and commenting on CNN.com via the embedded Activity Feed.” – from Geek.com

15. Instant Personalization Instant Personalization shares user information with selected third party websites who can in turn customize features to specific users. Pandora, Yelp and Docs.com are Facebook partners in this realm. If you don’t disable this feature, you can see on Pandora what your friend are listening to, what businesses they’ve liked on Yelp and their recent activity on Docs.com.

16. Don’t Forget Content, Content, Content! Driving people to your website (or even your fanpage) to “like” your company or brand is short-sighted if you haven’t a plan in place to generate conversation and create compelling, interesting conversation that will drive interaction and sharing among your fans’ networks. So, no matter how or when you use the Like button, remember that content matters. And it matters a lot. If you don’t have the budget or resources to create custom videos or lack the know-how to create custom tabs and applications, focus on what you can do with little time for free: Create polls Write notes or generate discussion threads Publish your blog content to your wall Ask questions in your status updates Re-use and repurpose visual content, like photos, ads and flyers Create photo albums that let your fans get to know your company better Learn and use FBML to place images, ads and other content to your wall/tabs

17. Alicia BenjaminSocial Media Manager at MeYou Health alicia.benjamin@meyouhealth.com @leximaven http://www.linkedin.com/in/abenjamin http://www.meyouhealth.com MeYou Health LLC, is a subsidiary of HealthwaysInc. meyouhealth.com