How to Like a Facebook Page or Post

By Carolyn Abram from Facebook For Dummies, 4th Edition

In addition to leaving a timeline post, you can interact with your friends on Facebook by commenting on or liking the things they post. Frequently, people post things that you want to respond to. You may read an article they posted and want to respond to the viewpoint with one of your own. Their photos may be so beautiful that you just have to tell them. Or, like this status, you may just need to point out something they hadn’t considered.

Sometimes, a status or photo or link is just good. You might not have a brilliant comment to make, or you might just feel a little lazy. A great example of this is news about someone’s engagement. That’s awesome, you might think. And then you look and notice about 50 comments saying simply, “Congrats!” Because, while the engagement is empirically good, there’s not much to say beyond “Congratulations” or “I’m so happy for you” or “Mazel Tov!” That’s where Liking comes in. Liking is just a fast way for you to let your friends know that you’re paying attention and you like what you’re seeing.

To Like something, simply click the word Like (it’s a small blue link) below or next to the item. Your friend will be notified that you Like it. If you didn’t mean it, really, click Unlike and your Like will be taken away.

You can Like almost anything on Facebook. You can Like a photo or a status; you can even Like a comment on a photo or status. But there’s a slight difference between Liking this sort of content and Liking Pages.

Pages are sort of official Profiles that companies, bands, and public figures make to represent themselves on Facebook. They mostly work like timelines, except instead of friending or subscribing to Pages, you Like Pages.

This sort of liking has one big implication you should be aware of. It means you may start seeing posts and updates from the Page in your News Feed, alongside stories from your friends. These sorts of updates can be really interesting and cool if you’re into the particular company or brand (for example, Old Spice Guy or The New York Times). If they start to bother you, you can always click the trusty ol’ caron to adjust your settings, just like with people.

If you’re a reader of blogs, you may notice that the comment and Like links and icons appear in lots of places. For example, at the top of blog posts on Jezebel, a Gawker Media blog, a little Like button counts the number of people who have Liked any particular post.

You can Like posts on any website you’re viewing, and those Likes will be recorded on your timeline and may appear in your friends’ News Feeds or ticker. Through something called Social Plug-ins, Facebook allows other website developers to enable certain Facebook features like the Like button on their own websites. If you are currently logged in to Facebook, you may start noticing these buttons all over the Internet. This a really quick way to let your Facebook friends know about the most interesting content you’ve come across online.

Other websites have Share links that generate the same Facebook Share box that you find on Facebook itself. So from an entirely separate website, you can choose to post to a friend’s timeline, your own timeline, to a group, or to a message thread.

Similarly, some blogs, such as TechCrunch, a blog about technology and Silicon Valley use Facebook comments as their primary commenting system.