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Note: Use this post to talk about the Wordpress Facebook Like button plugin
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If you’re using THE Facebook Like button plugin (the first one the market and most robust ;-) hosted on Wordpress, you want to be able to administer your pages.
It’s nice to have lots of people like your pages, but it’s even better if you can also send all those Facebook user a message too.
For instance you could post updates about your page, or offer products and services (or advertisement) in a pinpoint accuracy targeted way.
The main revolution Facebook announced at f8 on April 21st is that every legacy web page on the web can now be turned into a Facebook page.
Here is how it works in practice and how to administer your blog pages on Facebook.
You will be able to not only view all the Facebook users who Liked your page, but see statistics and also send all of them messages directly to their Facebook feeds.
Pretty powerful spammy viral tool here.
The First solution if you use Wordpress and the Facebook Like button plugin is to simply configure the plugin by entering your Facebook ID in the Settings page.
It will make an “Admin Page” link appear next to the number of shares you have so far for the page:
And voilà! You’re done. The meta data will be added automatically to the header.
The Second solution, if you don’t use the plugin, or if you use another blogging software or even a standalone website is to add some meta tags in the html header.
Here are the steps to do it manually in Wordpress.
1/ Modify you Wordpress header
Edit your Wordpress header file…
bash# cd ~/wordpress/wp-content/themes/<THE DIRECTORY OF YOUR THEME>/ bash# vi header.php
… by adding HTML tag attributes (very top of the file):
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xmlns:og="http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/"
xmlns:fb="http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml" <?php language_attributes(); ?>>
… and by adding these meta tags in the header section of the header.php file:
<meta property="fb:admins" content="YOUR OWN FACEBOOK ID"/> <meta property="og:title" content="<?php the_title_attribute( $args ); ?>" /> <meta property="og:type" content="blog" /> <meta property="og:url" content="<?php echo get_permalink($post->ID); ?> "/> <meta property="og:image" content="http://blog.bottomlessinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/logo.jpg" />
Don’t forget to replace “YOUR OWN FACEBOOK ID” with your own numerical Facebook ID.
(example: “68310606562″ if you are Mark Zuckerberg)
Be careful to use the proper Facebook ID as once people start liking your post, you cannot change this ID anymore for security reasons.
You can only append new Facebook IDs (separate them with commas) and cannot replace the original Facebook ID which always has to appear first.
So in the previous example the first Facebook ID will always have to be 68310606562, otherwise Facebook will return this error when trying to like the page:
You previously specified 68310606562 as the leading admininstatory in the ‘fb_admins’ meta tag. The ‘fb_admins’ tag now specifies that 666 is the leading administrator. That needs to be changed back.
Also you can’t remove the Admin ID anymore once it’s been entered, or you will get this error:
Your page no longer includes any admininstrator IDs, even though you’ve specified one before. You must include 68310606562 in the ‘fb_admins’ meta tag, and it must be the very first one if there are many.
Facebook ©2010
Thanks to Tim at Hyperarts for the code.
2/ Administer your Facebook Ghost Pages
Now refresh your page, click on the “Like” button and notice the link to your newly created Facebook admin page as in this screen shot:
Clicking on the “Admin Page” link will redirect you to Facebook, which is only a regular Facebook Page automatically created with the picture specified in your header meta tag as profile picture.
It looks like this:
Notice at the top the message in the yellow box confirming your are administrator of the page:
Administer Your Page.
You are seeing this page because you are an administator. All other users are directed to http://blog.bottomlessinc.com/2010/04/creating-a-wordpress-plugin-add-the-new-facebook-like-button-to-your-posts/, but you are being directed here so you can manage your fans and publish stories to your fans’ News Feeds.
(hum, looks like Facebook doesn’t know how to spell administrator).
Facebook provides a list of all the pages you administer in one convenient place.
Facebook is definitely mirroring the whole entire world wide web with these ghost pages that will blossom like mushrooms this spring.
From this Facebook page you can:
- see all Facebook users who Liked your page (formerly known as “Fans”)
- see statistics about the page (“insights”)
- post a message to your page wall
You will then start getting a weekly email update from Facebook listing the statistics of all your the different pages that were created.
For each page you will see:
- number of fans this week and number of total fans (hum, Facebook still calls them “Fans” here, I guess it didn’t sound right to call them “Likers”?)
- Wall Posts, Comments, and Likes this week (and last week)
- visits to your page this week (and visits last week)
- a direct link to Update your fans
Posting a message to your page wall will make your message appear in the Stream of every user who liked your page.
Virality is back (for external website that is, not Facebook applications)
I am using this plugin on my personal blog.
I would first like to say, good job, and thanks!
Second, I want to know if there is a way, or if you can make a new version of the plugin, that allows me to disallow the “Like” button to be show on WP pages, and only on WP posts?
Thanks Josh,
I’ll add this in the next release.
Starting from version 1.4 released a few hours ago, the plugin supports the “Admin Page” link automatically if you provide the Facebook ID you want to use to manage your pages.
You no longer need to configure the meta tags manually.
After being the first plugin to support the new Facebook Like button, our plugin is now the first to support this feature.
Hello! I just installed your plugin on my blog. After entering my Facebook ID, however, I do not see an Admin link next to my Facebook Like button, and I am logged into Facebook. The one reason I can think of is that I have a vanity url (http://facebook.com/dianafreedman) rather than an ID number. Any idea what could be wrong here? And can I connect the like buttons throughout my blog to my Facebook fan page (http://facebook.com/ustandout)? Thanks in advance! :-)
@Diana
Your user id is 908764
You can look up anybody’s user id from they username using this url:
http://graph.facebook.com/
so for your it’s
http://graph.facebook.com/dianafreedman
Also make sure you have at least one Like of your page to see the Admin link, otherwise there’s nothing to administer and the Facebook ghost page is not created.
Hi,
the plugin works perfectly, except for one thing:
The admin link is only shown on posts, which I “like”.
If only other people “like” a post, their names an pictures are shown, but no admin link.
Mark
HI,
I am using your plugin and it is great, I can only interact with the admin page, BUT in the facebook wall after pushing the like button I see this:
Gyula kedveli Kosárlabda-t itt: Köz(l)öny.
the first link is the “Kosárlabda” which is the correct link to the article:
http://www.pocox.hu/kozlony/2010/03/kosarlabda/
BUT the second link “Köz(l)öny” is actually: http://www.pocox.hu, which means it is diverted to another web page..it is not a big problem but is it somehow possible to edit the second link to “www.pocox.hu/kozlony” or something else completely?
Thanks
Gyula
I keep getting an error next to the like button, it says:
“The application ID specified within the “fb:app_id” meta tag is not allowed on this domain. You must setup the Connect Base Domains for your application to include this domain.”
What to do?
@Marius I got that because I used my page ID and not my personal account ID. I would check those again.
@PIF The plugin is working well, although I would like to run the plugin on my German language sites and in German Like = Gefällt mir.
I have tried to find infos on the German like button, but have not been successful up to now. Do you have an Idea how I could adapt the Plugin to show the German equivalent? Or maybe you have an idea how to change it generally to allow other languages to show up with the correct text?
@Michael
I’m glad you find it useful.
I just added a German translation (poorly translated using Google translate), your feedback is appreciated as a native speaker.
You can send an email to dev [at] [the domain you're reading this blog from].
@PIF I installed the update and looks good. I will keep you posted on how it’s working. You can it working on he website I have given here. Many thanks for the quick reaction :-)
Hi there,
Great plugin but even if I check “show faces” on settings, it won’t show it.
Is there a fix coming up? Or am I missing something?
Keep up the great work.
Best,
Sergio Montini.
@Sergio
You need to increase the Height as well.
Thanks for pointing that out, the default setting is 30px which is just enough to show just the button.
I’ll add a note to the Admin interface to increase the Height as well when showing the faces.
@PIF
Thanks for your reply! I upgraded to 1.6 and entered my user ID, as you said above. I still do not see the Admin link, even on an article that 17 people have liked: http://ustandout.com/facebook/opt-out-facebook-instant-personalization.
I’m still not sure what I’m doing wrong. Any other suggestions? Thanks! :-)
P.S. I also can’t get the XFBML version working, and I created an application for it… do you have instructions on getting this to work?
@Diana
Did you like your own post?
You won’t see any Admin link even though your posts have many Fans (hum, “Likers” should we say?) until you like the page yourself.
I put your wonderful plugin and I have everything working)))
Quickly translated into Russian and want to send it to you (if you do not mind). Sorry, but could not find your email. The commentary @ Michael, you indicated – I use it? Thank you for your reply!
@5gorets
Thanks, we’re happy you like it, rank it on the Wordpress page too to share you opinion.
Definitely shoot us an email for the Russian translation, it’s a wonderful contribution, thank you.
I have installed this wonderful plugin on my blog and the button is showing up. But when I click on it, I get an Error link which tries to look for http://content
I am using the plugin on a live server which is accessible to the internet as well as facebook. What could be the problem?
You can check the issue on any of my post at http://www.abhinavsonkar.com
I have installed this wonderful plugin on my blog and the button is showing up. But when I click on it, I get an Error link which tries to look for http://content
I am using the plugin on a live server which is accessible to the internet as well as facebook. What could be the problem?
I’m loving the plug-in… thank you for putting this together.
I had the same issue as @Marius because I used our Corporate Fan Page ID. It requires one or more individual user IDs.
One tip for admins with colleagues that are also admins… I used our “Corporate” Facebook Login ID we used to create our Fan Page as the first Facebook ID followed by (comma delimited in the component) other admins in the company. Once a Facebook ID is used for your object, it cannot be changed, so you need to think about this. When someone leaves the company you do not want your Facebook Links to be hijacked by an individual employee and you want to be able to remove them as ad admin.
Now the issue I am having is that when I as an admin post messages to the Liked object page (to message all those who liked the item), the messages do not get sent to everyone’s page. In one case, I had 5 colleagues Like a Post and then I posted a message on the Facebook Admin Page for that Post. Only 1 of my colleagues saw the message sent to the followers of the object on their live feed. Any ideas why?
@Nicholas
Only the very first admin Facebook ID cannot be changed and removed.
Once you’ve set it and someone liked your page, it must always be present, and must always be the first one.
All subsequent ones added in a comma separated fashion can be removed anytime.
So you shouldn’t be scared if an employee leaves as long as the first one is a Facebook ID controlled by your company.
See paragraph 1/ of this post for more details.
Hi There. Thanks for a great plugin! I seem to be having 3 issues I can’t find a solution for:
1) I can’t seem to get the Admin link to pop up. I have entered my numeric facebook id (597439349) and liked my own page. When I first set it up, I entered the ID of my website’s “Page.” But later changed that once I read the comments here. Once I made that change, I tried liking a new post, and still no Admin link for the new post.
2) It looks like posts with really long URLs don’t work. ie, http://www.truthaboutdiamonds.com/2010/05/04/qa-biggest-ideal-cut-round-diamond-for-3500-including-setting-blue-nile-vs-james-allen-looking-for-biggest-stone-within-tight-budget-thats-still-eye-clean-and-a-good-performer/
I get a red “Error” that reads “The page at http://www.Sample.com/LONG-URL could not be reached.”
Unfortunately, I have a lot of these really long URLs.
3) The plugin keeps saying that “one more person” likes the page. ie, if I “like” it, it says, “Ira and one other person like this” even though it was only me. I realize this is probably a symptom of the same issue I listed in #1 above, so maybe this can help narrow down the issue.
Thanks again!
Ira
@PIF
Yep, I liked my own article. Still no Admin link… very strange!
I’m having issues getting this to work, I have it fully set up with my personal numeric ID and a facebook app number. however I get no admin controll. (I have liked one of my post)
Also a liked post doesn’t make it into my “news feed” where as a liked post with a comment does.
Any idea’s what’s going wrong
Thanks
Dom
I have set the show in search option for this plugin, but for some reason if for example I search for tribute (result http://www.jenniearmato.com/blog/index.php?s=tribute) the like button doesn’t appear. Anyone else have suggested fix or workaround?
Thanks.
I have put my fb id and my page id and liked my page but the admin button is still not coming up? Any help please! Thanks
Hi PlF
First off, FANTASTIC plugin. Thank you very much.
However, I’m having the same issue as a few others here (ie Diana Freedman), the “Admin” link does not appear – I’ve:
1. Added my numeric ID. I have not added/filled in any of the other part of that form
2. I have liked my own post
I tried playing around with the “use XFBML” option, but it just made the button disappear.
If you click on my link you’ll see how it looks at the moment. Any helpful advice about this would be much appreciated.
@Kimarie and @Japanese Commercial
I currently have the same problem on this very blog, I don’t see any admin link anymore.
I believe it’s a Facebook bug. Check the discussion on the plugin home page (previous article).
You can try changing the layout see if it works (but I doubt).
Great Plugin, was easy to setup – a bit more explanation on advanced settings might be good.
I’ve liked my own page and have others liking it but I also cannot see the Admin link.
Also what does the Facebook Page ID setting relate to? Does the Likes on my website link into my Facebook page in some way?
@Carl Taylor
Thanks for the feedbacks.
It’s a feature not advertised yet by Facebook, you can toy with it and discover what it does until they clarify the intent.
Thanks for the plugin! It’s great!
I have only an issue: the plugin says: “8 people like this”, but on the ghost page I have only two people (I and a friend). How can I solve this issue?
Is the “admin” link stil not showing on your page PlF?
I installed the plugin and cannot see the link, so I’m wondering, if I did something wrong, or if it’s still a FB bug…
It would be great if you could optionally use the WP Post Thumbnail for the meta property og:image :)
Great plugin! Like many others, I’m also having the “Admin link doesn’t appear” issue. I guess it’s a Facebook glitch/bug. :(
It works great! Thanks for the effort.
However I have one little oddity. When I like a blogpost (from the homepage usually) it seems to result in me and one other person liking it, every time. Like there are two likes added in one shot.
Any ideas why this might happen?
Like this a lot but I too am also not seeing the Admin link. Anyone find a way around this?
I have been trying to get this to work – have actually tried several different plug ins to do this.
I get the same error for all the pages (with various urls of course): The page at http://www.nothingbutmetaphor.com/archives/378 could not be reached.
The odd thing is that one of the posts had been “liked” by a few people via the posted link on facebook and the button reflected that on that page. Until I changed the settings and created an applID… not it asks me to be the first.
I know this isn’t your job or duty – just thinking you may like a puzzle… thanks in advance for any tips.
Is there any way to reset the admin account? When I first installed the plug-in I used the Facebook ID of a page, not my personal account. Then when I changed it to my personal ID it broke. Now it’s broken even when I change it back to the original ID, it still says there is no admin.
okay, had the same problem and could not get the admin to work. i just deleted the whole thing in wp-content/plugins/ and uploaded it again. now all the previous likes are most likely lost, but at least i can access the admin-page now! i still dont get a button, but i get a suffix link which takes me to the admin page.
just wanted to let you guys know that deleting and reinstalling did the trick for me since i was looking for a solution to this admin bug for quite some time now!
Question.
If “I” don’t “LIKE” my own post, but others do, is a “ghost page” still created on Facebook?
@Eric
Append the correct user ID in the “Numeric Facebook ID” field separating them with commas
@Lee
Yes the ghost page should still be there and Facebook should send you a weekly email on the statistics of all the pages you own (number of fans added/removed, number of wall posts, comments, likes and visits)
Hi, i have two sites.
a wordpress (http://funnypics247.com) that admin link next to like button works but the like didnt appear in news feed
and the other site (http://likethis.gr) that i have put the meta properties manually but when i like a page it doesnt show any Admin link next to like button
Do you know anything about these problems? :(
Thanks
@Giovanni I have the same issue. I only see myself and my friends on the Admin Page, but not the other “likers” of my page. Does anyone else have the same issue? Any suggestions?
Michael
I had the same problem like many others and could not get the admin link to work. It seams like it WILL work only if you set it to type BLOG.
The “Admin Page” link next to the Like Button doesn’t appear until the admin personally clicks the Like Button and Likes the item himself. So, the admin can’t track (in Facebook) people who like his external webpages via the Like Button until the he manually Likes each one of the pages too… The admin clicking Like is the only way that the admin Page gets set up on Facebook that will allow the admin to see how many people have Liked something (and allow the Admin to publish updates into those user’s feeds).
Now, my question is how can the admin possibly click Like on site with hundreds and hundreds of pages with Like Buttons, and how can he manage thousends of his ghost pages on Facebook (becouse every article has seperate ghost page on FB)?
In Facebook docs it says “Use article for any URL that represents transient content – such as a news article, blog post, photo, video, etc. Do not use website for this purpose. website and blog are designed to represent an entire site, an og:type tag with types website or blog should usually only appear on the root of a domain.”
In my opinion if you could make plugin that will use BLOG only in the root of a domain and ARTICLE on blog posts maybe then it will FB somehow link all those pages into one and make it easier to manage updates to people who liked articles…
Please correct me if I’m wrong… I’m not a developer and i have no idea if this makes any sense…
Regards!
Everything seems to be working perfectly except I’m wondering the same thing as Michael. It says I have “likers” but I can’t see who they are? Is it because they were not logged into FB at the time or are not FB users? I’m guessing both?
Hi I am having the same problem with no admin link. I have added my numerical user id. I read the comments and didn’t see any fix to the issue except for maybe being sure you click every like button on yoiur site. Is that what you have to do? Thanks so much.
hi. i am afraid i am still puzzled about admin link.
I added numerical fb id (yes double-checked it), I liked my post … and still no sign about admin link. I have also tried different setup of type – website, blog, article. … and nothing. does anyone know something that might help? many thanks.
Job Well Done! This plugin is the best… One question I have is when I leave the image blank in the LIKE plugin admin it grabs a image from the blog post that I don’t want. Is it possible to define what image should be used from the post and not just one image for all? If I leave the image URL blank and change the thumbnail image on the admin page in FB does that change the image when people the likes view in FB feed?
first I went to FB, made a like button, hardcoded it into the header of my wordpress site…. never saw an admin link.
then I tried some other wordpress plugin… no way to to connect the people with the app I built…. delete.
tried this one… same thing… no admin button. I cant get an admin button to save my life. I have created 3 pages, and 5 apps now and I can see people associated with my site, but I cannot add myself as the admin, despite putting my user id in the meta tags, liking it, seeing my self like it, refresh, etc.
I’m so burnt on this it is ridiculous.
This plugin works great. Is there a way to add the “like” and “comment” to the facebook wall post?
Good post. I have a website with tutorials. Have spent a lot of time trying to implement the Like Button. First, it is true that you will not get a FB page with type=article. Also, for those folks who are not seeing the Admin link, you do have to like your page as others have suggested, but then I guess you just have to wait. I’d given up on seeing the Admin panel on my homepage (type=website) and all of a sudden, 2 weeks later, it appeared one day!! Is it because I logged on with Chrome? (I usually use Firefox which doesn’t seem to get along at all with the Like Button.) So don’t give up hope.
The one thing I’m disappointed in is that there appears to be NO link whatsoever between the webpages with type=article and the homepage with type=website. To me this is a major flaw. Since few folks bother to come to my homepage (understandable), I’m getting no likes there and since the Facebook page is linked to the homepage (type=website), it will have little standing in Facebook search, which is a bummer. Just want to get exposure. I’m thinking of making each tutorial type=”something other than article” so FB pages will get created as that is where the Likes will be. Tried adding the website “Like” to each webpage and that, of course, was a mess as the 2 like buttons conflicted. Sigh.
BTW, your blog post was also very funny. Thanks for the chuckles.
Ta.
Up until last week … the plug-in worked great. Then poof … all of my likes disappeared. All of my ghost pages are still accessible via my FB profile … but they’re not communicating with my blog anymore. Before leaving the plug-in deactivated … I tried deactivating/reactivating, uninstalling/reinstalling … but no luck. Any suggestions?
Hi,
Im using the LIKE button in the new release of my site. Im only wanting to use it to increase exposure for my site (who isnt) and the listings people have added.
Will a “ghost page” be generated even if i dont specify an admin? Can i not connect the pages i have a LIKE button on to my facebook page and have wall posts there shared with the “likers” instead of having to go to a “ghost page”???
Thanks in advance! :o)
Danny
I entered my FB ID# into the set-up screen, but I’m not getting a link for the admin screen for a post of mine that has 50+ likes. What am I doing wrong? It would be great to be able to see who liked this post.
Kind of a drag. Just looked at a page on my blog that had 70 likes and now they have all disappeared. That’s disappointing.
I take that last comment back. I liked the page again. Now I finally see an admin page and insight link. My 72 likes are back too. But when I go to look the admin page, the only like I see is my own like. I don’t see the other 71 people who evidently liked the page. Any thoughts on that?
Hi, I’ve followed your instructions (I think) and cannot get the Admin option to appear. I made all the changes to the header.php file, I don’t have another header file than this.
It would be nice to see WHO liked my pages.
Thanks!