My Battle with the Like Button

Facebook's Like button has earned a giant Dislike from me.

My battle began recently, and it began with this blog. I cannot for the life of me get a Like button to appear on this lovely screen you're looking at it. I've spent too much time trying to deliver the exact code into the exact spot in the edit tab. Nothing happened. I finally managed a pathetic Like button that doesn't sit in the right place and only appears for me when I publish my post, and then promptly disappears when I try to view the blog.

So I decided I didn't really need a Like button. Like buttons are weird; I don't need to know everything that my facebook friends give a big ol' thumbs up to.

But then I stumbled across this article on Mashable, which claims that a Like button can increase a blog's traffic by 50%. Great.

Despite my general dismay with the article and the now inescapable task of adding a Like button, the general message is interesting. Link your blog to facebook, and more people will see your blog. I'm sure if your twitter account were linked to your facebook or vice versa both accounts would be getting a lot more hits as well. Social media is so interconnected that it's become hard to have one without the other. Everyone has their favorite (I'm a facebooker, despite our Like button quarrel), and I'm sure everyone has their least favorite (really, how can something that constantly tweets in your ear not be annoying?), but no one can deny the power of social media when the forces behind it combine.

And so my battle continues.