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How do I add a Facebook "like" box to my blog?

I've been inspired by your Facebook fan page, Dave, and have one of my own. Now that I have it, though, I'd like to be able to inclue a "like" box on my blog so that people not only see a link to the fan page, but see a few members, etc. I have seen it done on other blogs but can't figure out what they did. Is it a Wordpress plugin?


Dave's Answer:

This is something I've been thinking about adding to my site too, so your timing is good: it spurred me into exploring and figuring out the solution. Turns out that the capability to add a little mini-Facebook area to your blog (or any other page you manage, of course) is built-in to Facebook, but it's a bit tricky to find and, more likely than not, it'll move by the time you change it as the UI is ever-evolving. No Wordpress plug-in required!

What I'm assuming is that you aren't interested in just a "Like" button, but in something that's more sophisticated and useful to your potential fans, something where they'll see it, read through what's there, and click on "join" or "like" and join your Facebook family too. Hope I'm right! :-)

To start, go to Facebook and log in to your account. Now, on the left side, click on:

facebook add like button blog 1

Once you click on "Ads and Pages" you'll see a list of the pages you're administering. Mine looks like this:

facebook add like button blog 2

As you can see in the highlight, you want to click on "Edit Page" here. Now, scroll down and look on the right side for the following:

facebook add like button blog 3

That's what we want. Click on it and if you're like me, you'll see a very slick ad box for someone else's fan page. Not sure what's up with that, but we'll fix it to reference my fan page in a second. For now, here's what you'll see:

facebook add like button blog 4

Unless you have lots of screen space to devote to this widget, I suggest that the first thing you disable is the news stream from the group. Do that by unchecking the box adjacent to "Show stream".

Now it's a bit more manageable:

facebook add like button blog 5

Let's fix things so that it's highlighting my Facebook fan page. To do that you will probably need to open up a new tab onto Facebook, then go to "Edit Page" again. Notice the URL address bar in the browser. It'll look like this:

facebook add like button blog 6

The numeric sequence at the end -- in this case 207652508738 -- is what we need in the "Facebook Page ID" box. Select it in the address bar, copy it, then paste it into the box. Suddenly you're looking at your own fan page:

facebook add like button blog 7

Notice here that I've limited it to show five fans, but the box hasn't shrunk down and now has some empty space. Not so good. One last tweak I'll make is to have it be a more standard 250 pixels wide by changing that field:

facebook add like button blog 8

Looks good, so click on "Get Code" and the scary HTML pops up:

facebook add like button blog 9

Simply copy and paste the code in the first box, an iframe, into the HTML source of your page or blog template, and you should be good to go!

Here's the end result:

Neat, eh?


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Categorized: Blogs and Blogging , Facebook Help   (Article 9430, Written by )
Tagged: blog widgets, facebook fan pages, facebook groups, fan pages, wordpress
Previous: How do I delete or cancel my Facebook account?
Next: How do I sign up / create a Facebook account?




Reader Comments To Date: 25

Frank Branderson said, on May 20, 2010 5:53 PM:

Thank you for providing the missing piece of the puzzle, which for me was the numbers at the end of the URL and how to find them. Bravo!

Robert Kennedy said, on May 26, 2010 10:59 PM:

what do I do if my ID number doesn't work ..

Troy said, on June 11, 2010 4:04 PM:

Hi. Dave I have been struggling with this Facebook social plugin for about 2-3 hours now. I did everything exactly as you said. I copied my ID and it shows up as my page, but when I get the HTML and then put it into the site, it comes up as the sample page. Or lactose free milk? Any reasons why this may be happening? Thanks,
Troy Ballard

Troy said, on June 12, 2010 12:46 PM:

Never mind Dave. Apparently I needed to make an actual facebook profile before it would let me create the like box.
Thanks anyway.
Great site by the way.

Steve said, on June 14, 2010 4:00 PM:

Finally got round to setting up a Facebook page for my site and this looks a great way to integrate it tighter into my main page. Thanks

Josephine said, on August 4, 2010 12:00 PM:

Do you know if there is a way to change the language of the box? I'd like to have it in French as all of my visitors are from France.

Thanks

Elizabeth Bolton said, on August 6, 2010 3:15 PM:

Question - when I installed this it showed up as "You like this. Unlike" as it does in your examples until the last image. The only way I could figure out to make it show as "Like this" was to Unlike my own page. That doesn't strike me as the correct solution. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks!!

Liz

Lynette said, on August 8, 2010 7:03 AM:

I can't get my code to "stick". I get it in there and press save, it looks like it's saving for a second and then just blink out....Am I doing something wrong???
While I'm at it, do you have a site to show me how to put my posts on my facebook site automatically?
THANKS..your directions are so good for a semi illiterate computer operator.
~~Lynette

Aodhan said, on August 8, 2010 7:30 AM:

I've been messing around with this for a while now trying to generate a Like Box for a Fan Page for my business. Only catch is when I enter the numeric value, it comes up as a stream from my personal Facebook Page and not my Fan Page (www.facebook.com/todayfm) - any suggestions?

Hemraj said, on August 14, 2010 3:05 PM:

Hey, can you please explain what the below sentence means? I don't have a clue where and how to find the HTML source of the page..can you pls put screen shots?
"Simply copy and paste the code in the first box, an iframe, into the HTML source of your page or blog template, and you should be good to go!"

sansoft said, on August 26, 2010 5:15 AM:

Do you know if there is a way to change the language of the box? I'd like to have it in French as all of my visitors are from France.

Thanks

Nancy Petro said, on September 2, 2010 9:24 AM:

Dave,

These are terrific instructions for something I have spent hours trying to do. I now finally have the code that I want to paste. Almost there. But where and how do I paste it? (See, I know nothing.)

Thanks very much. I don't like to put my credit card on the Internet but would be happy to buy you a cup of coffee if you give my your address so I can send a check.

Bill said, on September 15, 2010 9:55 AM:

Hi Dave wonderful steps and instructions on how to get the like-box working however I have been having a problem in getting the like-box to display if I'm not signed into facebook. Is it possible to get the like box to display without being signed into facebook?

Skip said, on September 21, 2010 11:06 AM:

Dave,

It appears that Facebook switched up its widget and instead of asking for the Facebook Page ID, it asks for the Facebook Page URL. So when I enter the URL, everything in the preview looks great but when i paste the iframe code into my blog, an error message occurred. I'm confused. Can you please advise? Thanks.

Sam said, on November 27, 2010 12:58 AM:

dude you r A++++

Sona said, on December 17, 2010 2:21 AM:

Dave, you have missed something about changing iframe code to desired code form.

monisha said, on February 12, 2011 10:40 AM:

nice tutorial, i just follow the steps and implement it for my site

http://comicphotos.blogspot.com/

no words to say thank u

Brii said, on February 17, 2011 11:52 PM:

I followed all these steps, but when I save this is all that shows up in the widget:

http://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpages%2FProduct-Junky%2F200439579968253&width=250&colorscheme=light&show_faces=true&stream=false&header=false&height=62

I copied the iframe code into a widget on wordpress (which says you can use html)

what am I doing wrong?

Larry said, on February 19, 2011 12:37 PM:

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Gayward Mendoza said, on April 5, 2011 8:08 PM:

Nice post.I am also using this facebook plugin. Thanks! :)

Cisem said, on April 12, 2011 7:54 AM:

I got the code from facebook but i can not find where i should paste it to.. what do u mean: paste it into the HTML source of your page or blog template, and you should be good to go!

Please help!!!

danny jenkowski said, on April 30, 2011 8:34 AM:

I try to add this to my site also, but I have a strange problem... I see the logo of facebook there but nothing else... I can not see the photos of people like the page...

I have try to use it for 2 hours know and still nothing...

The site is in wordpress...

I even try to add the same code in another site of mine (in joomla) but the problem stays the same...

judy denu said, on August 10, 2011 4:47 PM:

I got to the last step but don't know where to put the pkuggin, I copy and paste but am confused where to paste it???

vinay said, on November 15, 2012 11:46 PM:

i added facebook like box to my blog but when vistors clickinh like button its asking confirm and again when they are ckicking confirm button its showing page does not exist......can you tell why its happening....plz help me as soon as possible... i am waitng for your reply......thank you..!!!

Tomas said, on April 12, 2013 6:45 PM:

My problem is, that I can not create like box. I have tried many things, few hours - it doesn't appears. Yes-doesn't appears.
With other URL going well. Only my URL doesn't work. Help, please!
Facebook Page; https://www.facebook.com/decochrome.co.uk

Thanks!

Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!











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