The Like is the center of the Facebook experience. That simple expression has driven Facebook from college pet project to public company worth billions. Unfortunately, one pillar of the Facebook experience has been missing the Like for some time now. It’s time to fix that.
Facebook announced today that the Like function is now available on mobile apps. While the Like button was around on the mobile version of Facebook, it was sorely missing from mobile apps that integrate Facebook. Through the magic of Open Graph, the almighty Like button will now be able to drive traffic from apps to Facebook and vice versa.
In other awesome news, mobile apps don’t have to stick to Facebook’s iconic thumbs up for their Like button. Mobile app developers can create their own like button in line with their app’s visual design to drive likes to Facebook.
The Like party doesn’t stop there though. If a friend uploads something on Instagram and you like it, that friend will receive a notification on Facebook about that like. It drives traffic back and forth between Facebook and the app as friends keep on liking and sharing said likes across every app platform on the planet.
There is one caveat that must be made known to developers. The mobile Like is not a free pass for your app to start cluttering up other people’s Facebook Timelines. A person must authorize your app to let it send notifications about their liking habits.
Here’s two important things to note when using the new Like actions for mobile app:
If you use a custom like action or you’re still working on Facebook integration, check out Facebook’s documentation on the Built-in Like. The Like is a powerful tool and should be treated with caution. Don’t abuse it and it won’t abuse you.