Facebook are Improving their Sharing and Comments

Fast Company

Facebook are always changing things around and now they want to change how people view other sites and articles through them. A small change of how the like button is viewed is one thing but also giving users the chance to share things easier through Chrome is another.

The like button is present on more than just Facebook these days. Other sites feature like and share buttons on their articles but they've never actually had the famous thumbs up symbol featured on them as on the app. At first, this was because Facebook wanted people to know that the button was sharing to Facebook. However, people know that the thumbs up button is the symbol for a like. Facebook have redesigned their buttons for liking and sharing on other sites making them flatter and a little neater. The like button now simply contains the famous thumbs up, the word like and the share count. Around 30% of users supposedly recognised the button even when it was a small button and the new design has a 6% engagement increase.

As well as this new design of the buttons, instant articles will now also have the like, share and comment posts on the bottom of the articles. This means that even if you've clicked through to another site, you'll still be able to react to it on Facebook. The other change is that if an article or a site has a Facebook comments plugin, then you'll be able to see the comments on Facebook as well as the instant article and on the original site. This is the first time that the comments have been mirrored everywhere so it means readers will always be able to see what everyone said and form an opinion from that as well as the article.

When it comes to the buttons developers can edit them to make them fit their page better. If they don't want the Facebook buttons to stand out too much they can reduce the size, or enlarge them to encourage people to share their pages. By encouraging people to share more, Facebook is hoping to get more traffic and that is always good news.

Rosina Brooker

Rosina is a Songbird writer with a degree in Creative Writing. She's trying to focus on her novel on the side but is glad to be playing around with apps and writing about them in the mean time! Follow her @Songbird_Rosina

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