Like button for Facebook page shows generic Facebook description in News Feed

Question

I want a Like button on my web site that Likes my Facebook profile (rather than my web page), so that when a user clicks it they subscribe to my Facebook posts.

I've created the Like button using the tool at https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/

Further down that page there is an FAQ entry:

Can I link the Like button to my Facebook page?

Yes. Simply specify the URL of your Facebook page in the href parameter of the button.

So, I've edited the href parameter to point to my Facebook page. eg:

https://www.facebook.com/myfacebookid

When a user clicks the Like button it has the desired effect. The user ends up having Liked my Facebook page. This is easily verified by the user going to my Facebook profile and checking that the Like button has changed to Liked.

But. When the user clicks the Like button, and entry appears in their News Feed with a generic Facebook description. ie:

Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, post links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.

I don't want a generic post about Facebook to appear. I want the description to relate to my Facebook account and/or web site.

Normally, I could modify this behavior with the Opengraph og: description tag, but as the page in the href is a Facebook page and not my own, I can't control the Opengraph tags.

I'm pretty sure that this was working okay before I enabled timeline for my account, so maybe this is a timeline bug?

So, how do I add a Like button which a) Likes my Facebook profile rather than one of my own web pages, and b) Posts a description of my Facebook profile rather than give a generic Facbook description?

Fairway

Same problem here. Even if I provide all OG tags on the page where the like button is shown. – Girvin

There's actually a bug ticket on Facebook about this issue: developers.facebook.com/bugs/… – Girvin

@Nasmon, it seems that you are right. I would post it as answer to get your points back. – Provencher

Answer 1

Are all your fields in the info part of your page filled in, and/or completed? I just tested your theory and it seemed to work as expected, only thing is I know all fields in "info" are filled it. Give that a try.

Ava

Answer 2

This may happen if you have filled invalid/incomplete/wrong og tags in past and later changed them. Facebook's cache creates problem sometime.

Try putting all the entries (i.e. all og tags) and then debug them here http://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug. This debugger gives a detailed info about the url with og tags and also clears the cache for you.

This should solve the problem.

Pansir

Answer 3

You have 3 important fields that used on page opengraph: Name,Description,Profile Image. They are used when some one post your link on Facebook, or Google or some else web service that handle opengraph.

Injector

Answer 4

Actually, the suggested answers currently do not work and there is an open bug / ticket on Facebook for it. Up to now, there's no fix.

Girvin

Answer 5

The problem is that you can not use simply https://www.facebook.com/myfacebookid. You should copy and paste the exact page URL. If you have a low number of likes it would look something like https://www.facebook.com/pages/[YourPageName]/[Your page Id]/, and this is the URL that you should use at this point. If it does not work, try also https://www.facebook.com/[YourPageName]/[Your page Id]/.

In short, copy-paste the URL, do not type it manually.

Ana