Millions of websites around the world have the Facebook Like button included as a part of the “social media strategy” and just as a social sharing to website content. Next to the Facebook like button is often a number, presumed to indicate the number of times the content or page has been ‘liked’.
However, this is not actually the case. The number next to the Facebook Like Button actually represents:
- Total Number of Likes +
- Total Number of Shares +
- Total Number of Comments
For example, if you post an article and
- 2 people Like it
- 1 person Shares it
- 1 person Comments on it
the Facebook Like button would indicate as 4. Facebook has confirmed this on their developer site.
Many users and even people in the social media industry didn’t realise this is the case. There is also some speculation that the Like Button count will increase if you share articles through private messages, although this hasn’t been confirmed by Facebook yet.