With Facebook’s announcement of the ability to publish updates to connected users – that is, users who click on your Like Button – I thought I’d post a walkthrough of just how easy it is to implement and utilize.

You can easily grab the code for a Like Button at http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like.  Use their configurator, and place the code on your site or blog.  You notice that if your like button is 450 width or wider, a user now has the ability to comment from the plug-in.  If a user adds a comment to their Like using the social plug-in, a post with their comment and a shared link will appear on their wall.

You’ll also need to provide a list of administrators (essentially these are Facebook users who can send updates) by using an fb:app_id or fb:admins meta tag. 

Once you’ve done this your button will function properly and you’ll be able to send updates to your connected users.  If you don’t configure an administrator, users will see an error after liking your content - so be sure to set up your administrators!

Administrators will see a Page Admin screen - which may be confusing since you might not have a page. Although you can see in this image that it’s straightforward to create a Facebook page and roll users into your Facebook presence should that become part of your strategy:

This is nice - you can target updates to users based on their location, sex, and/or age. You can also attach a video or a link to your message.

Updates appear within a user’s inbox within their Updates folder.  Note that this isn’t the top level of an inbox and a user may have to click on the folder to see their updates.

There you have it, communicating with your userbase through Facebook is simple - with a page or without.  If only successful marketing could be as easy. 

The ability to communicate to users who like a product, brand, celebrity (or any entity on the open graph for that matter) is an early example of how powerful Facebook’s Open Graph really is – but keep your eye on the ball - communication to users is only the first of many possible uses.  

The fact that Facebook makes such power so easy to use is a testament to why they’ve grown so large in the first place.