What’s Happening to Facebook “Share”?

Customers have been asking us lately what happened to the Share button. Facebook’s made many substantive changes recently and one we haven’t fully explained is the phasing out of Share in favor of Like.

Facebook deprecated the Share button on February 28, which means they no longer recommend its use in applications or on external web sites. The share button still works as of now, but Facebook will de-prioritize maintenance of the feature.

Using Like to Share
While Like and Share served different purposes in the past, most of the functions of the Share button have been added to the Like button. This simplification is one of the main reasons that Facebook is moving towards having just one button instead of two. It’s simpler for users to understand, simpler for new sites to adopt, and simpler for brands to quantify success.

It’s important to stress here that the ability to share, which is one of the great strengths of Facebook, is as powerful as ever. The previous function of Share buttons, to allow media and linked content to show up in the sharer’s news feed with a link back to its source, is now part of the function of Like, with some notable differences:

• There is no longer anything to remind users with whom exactly this content is being shared.
• The ability to select whether to share it to Everyone, Friends of Friends, Friends Only, or Customize is no longer supported, your privacy defaults will instead be used.
• The ability to “Send as a Message instead” is not supported.
• On Facebook news feeds or application tabs, Like appears under the content in the form, “You, Person X, and # others like this.”
• On web sites, blogs and other content streams, Like appears where the button has been installed in the form, “You, Person X, and # others recommend this.”
• The liked item is able to appear in your friends’ news feeds.

The share function continues to persist as an option in news feeds but only in posts that meet the following criteria:

• Media or links published in Facebook.
• Media or links published from platforms on which the Share button is still indicated.
• Media published from an application tab on which the Share button still appears.
• The Share function will not appear under status updates or media shared from application tabs that do not include a Share button.

In this limited capacity, users will continue to be able to use share and bring up the “share dialog box,” from which you can share as previously.

What’s In It For Involver Customers
There’s something else notable about this last point for Involver customers. We’ve decided to remove the Share button from our current applications, including the YouTube app, taking advantage of our new application re-design to institute and standardize around the more powerful like button.

These changes don’t require any new work from you, they just work on your apps now — and Involver will continue to watch for areas like this where Facebook is recommending best practices and we will implement them as it makes sense. For more information on the changes in our new application design, please refer to iFrames Are Here and So Is Involver and previous blog posts on the subject.

Above all, we want you to get the most from the new direction Facebook is taking, which we view as very positive. Clearly, one of the great powers of Facebook is as an engine for sharing comments, status updates, and rich media.

From now on, Involver customers will see Like but not Share buttons on applications such as the YouTube app (see right).

Should you have any questions or comments, please continue to share them below in the comments area or on our Facebook page. For support related questions, please contact us here.

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