How To Quickly Add the Tweet Button and Facebook Like Button to Your Site

If you have a website with a blog or frequently updated posts, you can easily add the Tweet button and the Facebook like button to your posts – and you don't have to have a designer or developer do the coding for you.

Facebook Like Button

To add the Facebook like button (or the recommend version, seen below), visit what Facebook's developer's Social Plugins section, and click on Like Button. Don't get nervous that it's a "developers" section – if you know how to copy and paste, you can do this.

Scroll down until you see this:

As you fill out the fields, Facebook shows you what visual changes you are making to the widget. Basically, just choose whatever you want visually, if you want faces to be shown, if you want it to say "like" or "recommend", and if you want a specific font or color scheme.

Once you have the design you want, click "get code" and copy and paste the iframe code to the post, anywhere below your text. If you're using Blogger, Wordpress or another site that differentiates between rich text formatting and HTML, you'll need to paste this in the HTML section.

Here's an example of the Facebook like button on one of our articles.

And what happens when someone clicks it? It appears in their profile under recent activity, and increases the chances that one of their friends will click and read the same content.

Tweet Button

If you think the Facebook like button is easy, the Tweet button is even simpler.

Go to your Twitter page, click on Goodies in the footer, then click on Tweet Button.

Twitter gives you customization options, from button design to text and URL options. If you want to link to the page on which you're adding the button, you don't even have to fill in the URL (which is handy if it's a post you haven't published yet).

You can optionally add a Twitter username to the auto-generated tweet. If you have a Twitter account, this is a great idea to not only increase traffic on your site but also to gain more followers.

Once you've filled out all the necessary fields and chosen your design, just copy the code into the HTML section of your post, and the Tweet button will appear.

Here is an example of the Tweet button on an article about Tennessee Civil War Trails.

And here's what happens when someone clicks the button:

Unlike with Facebook, you can edit what appears, but most people stick with the default setting.

Have you used the like or tweet buttons on your site? Do you find them effective?

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