Facebook Like on Product Page

Auto Creates a new FB page, or best method?

[philbish]

I'm playing around with adding a Like button to my e-commerce product pages, sending a unique URL for that product page, rather than the base domain.

I've added some Open Graph metadata to each product page, and so now when someone clicks on a Like for the first time, it actually creates a new Facebook Page, with me as the admin.

I'm not sure what to think of this. Maybe it'd be better to feed users into "Liking" my main store fan page, rather than 100's of unique product Pages.

Anyways, whats the best implementation for adding Like buttons to e-commerce product pages?

[dogboy]

Well, that's a little tricky, depending on who you ask...

Personally, I think their are serious conceptual flaws with what the tools are supposed to do and what they actually do. That said, are you sure what you REALLY want is someone to 'Like' one of your products? Or do you really want them to 'Share' this with their friends? Because if that is the case, you might consider not even using the 'Like' button, (or the 'Recommend' version of it) and instead use the Comment plugin.

For me, it really comes down to how much I want to stay in touch with that user. If I already am connected to the user then I no longer have a need for them to 'Like' anything... I need them to share things. And while both the 'Like' button and the 'comments' plugin both do this, they do so in different ways.

And if you STILL want to use the 'Like' button, but 1000 admin pages don't make sense.... and you want me to be creative... you might consider making individual 'Like' buttons to specific category pages on your site, so that the person really didn't 'Like' the (for example) 'wrench', they liked your 'tools' section, on your site.

Drawback here is that you kinda bait and switched/suckered your users into 'Liking' something they really don't, just so you can meaningfully message/target them later (ex 'we are having a sale on 'tools' today.)

Again, its up to you to define what you want to DO, then look at the FB tools to see which tool you can use to do what you want. In many cases, you may find a wrench may be better for driving your nails than whatever FB engineered to be their hammer.

[getxb]

@philbish: Thanx for raising the question as I was also in some kind of dilemma. I would rather like to draw your attention to a Facebook doc [developers.facebook.com...] which says:

The Like button lets a user share your content with friends on Facebook. When the user clicks the Like button on your site, a story appears in the user's friends' News Feed with a link back to your website.

When your Web page represents a real-world entity, things like movies, sports teams, celebrities, and restaurants, use the Open Graph protocol to specify information about the entity. If you include Open Graph tags on your Web page, your page becomes equivalent to a Facebook page. This means when a user clicks a Like button on your page, a connection is made between your page and the user. Your page will appear in the "Likes and Interests" section of the user's profile, and you have the ability to publish updates to the user. Your page will show up in same places that Facebook pages show up around the site (e.g. search), and you can target ads to people who like your content.

So lets consider your site is an e-commerce site selling various types of slippers. So if you offer me to like (with the the OG parameters like title, description, image, etc.) one of the slippers of brand A (and hence not unique, available elsewhere in the web) then it becomes a redundant item in itself as some other websites might also be promoting the same slipper of brand A from his site in the same way you are doing. So at one point of time Facebook might return 100s of search results of the same product which might be redundant in nature.

But say you market a product branded by you and hence unique in itself, then I think you should use the OG parameters and let Facebook create an automated page in itself with X no. of fans whom you can reach later by status updates.

Just my 2 cents..

[dogboy]

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but I thought philbish was questioning whether he should solicit 'Likes' to his 'site', rather than his individual product pages, because he realized he can't possibly ever actually administer that many admin pages, by hand... which kinda defeated his whole idea of 'staying in touch', the way he originally conceived.

That's why I was asking him what he actually wanted to 'do' and not which tool he thought he should choose, because if he wants to stay in touch, he needs them to either 'like' his site's url, or his FB 'page' (or 'app') so that he can actually message his fans.

@getxb: What you are talking about is something completely different, although I get what you are saying. You are saying people are creating their own 'product' and then linking their 'Like' button to this non-unique product, instead of a 'master' (the one and only) product.

For example, I have a 'blue widget' on my site, built by 'XYZ Corp', and when someone 'likes' this product, you think they should link that 'like' button to the one and only 'blue widget', built by 'XYZ Corp', and not 'blue widget' on dogboy's site.

Is that correct?

If so, then I see some issues... What if pricing is different on different sites? And who exactly is connected? Can the XYZ Corp start directly messaging the end user, bypassing their retailer, who spent all the marketing dollars to actually make the connection and bring the two together?

See, this is why I think these tools were poorly conceived and weren't developed by marketers. They fundamentally lack 'framing and scope'. What is painfully lacking here is a way to stay in touch with people who like different things on your site, all from one place, the same way as if they 'liked' your site.

And because they don't offer a meta admin panel as I describe, it basically renders the more interesting half of the equation useless for anyone with lots of products or articles, forcing them to either abandon hopes of recontacting these people expressing interest in a product.... or bait and switch them into liking your site, at least once, so you can message them. Downside is the user gets suckered and cant 'like' more than one thing on your site.

Either way, it's not optimal. That is why I suggested 'comments', and 'like' buttons for category level pages, so if you have a diverse offering, at least you can still effectively target by subject matter.

[getxb]

@dogboy: You do have a point. Comments specially for news sites/blogs are simply great. But I am thinking of this part -

I've added some Open Graph metadata to each product page, and so now when someone clicks on a Like for the first time, it actually creates a new Facebook Page, with me as the admin.

I'm not sure what to think of this. Maybe it'd be better to feed users into "Liking" my main store fan page, rather than 100's of unique product Pages.

So I guess his problem is too many Facebook pages are auto created by Facebook itself because of the metadata he is passing. If that be his point then I suggest to simply add a Like button without metadata since that won't create pages automatically.

When your Web page represents a real-world entity, things like movies, sports teams, celebrities, and restaurants, use the Open Graph protocol to specify information about the entity. If you include Open Graph tags on your Web page, your page becomes equivalent to a Facebook page.

I am also having the same problem (like philbish) where we have 20k+ product pages and because of a Like button implementation with metadata, so far 1000s of pages have been automatically created. Yes we do have our main fan page and I see no point in this auto creation technique by Facebook techies (not marketers). Who's gonna manage these pages? Why doesn't Facebook publish the story in the News feed and add the user to the main fan page instead. So one fine morning they might wake up, realize and publish an update in their blog about certain restrictions, maybe impossible for the world to adopt.

But tell you what, these Likes shows up in the FB search apart from News Feeds and am happy to see traffic coming to my site. So no complaints as of now.