When the “Like” button is used on an article, that story is added to Facebook’s search database; it is posted to the user’s profile and it is published to a user’s friends, creating three potential avenues for the story to be found by others.

It’s not surprising then, that adding “Like” has substantially increased both usage and engagement on certain sites.  News sites like Gawker have seen about a 200% increase in traffic; SimplyHIred.com has experienced 2.2x more job searches and NHL.com users have read 92% more articles. Sites that place friend’s faces next to the “Like” button have a much higher rate of like button usage than those that do not.

Facebook also provided some interesting numbers on “Likers.”  The average Facebook user has 130 friends, but people who use the “like” button have more than 2x more friends.  They are also over 5x more likely to browse external content.  News readers who use the “like” button have a median age about twenty years younger than the average newspaper reader, or 34 and 54. respectively.

Facebook also published guidelines on which kinds of stories increase engagement.  On the top of their list were “touching, emotional stories,” for example “fireman adopts girl orphaned in home fire…” and “passionate provocative debates,” for example, “is it time to ban vuvuzuvas?” Both of these types of stories increased engagement by over 2x.

Other recommendations for publishers included: placing the activity plugin above the fold and on multiple pages, using livestream for live events, creating pages on current events, using search API for visualizations that increase engagement.  Additional useful recommendations were given to journalists for using Facebook more effectively.

These statistics and guidelines should be quite useful for those seeking to maximize traffic on their sites.

Here are some links we’ve enjoyed recently that we hope you’ll find useful:

1) Ten free online books for web designers:

http://webdesignledger.com/freebies/10-free-online-books-for-web-designers

2) Ten crowdsourced music video projects:

http://mashable.com/2010/07/25/crowdsourced-music-videos/

3) Top 20 sites to improve your Twitter experience:

http://mashable.com/2010/07/25/improve-twitter-experience/

4) The most common mistakes SaaS providers make:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2010/07/saas-lessons-learned.php

5) Tips on finding and approaching angel investors

http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/07/tips-on-finding-and-approachin.php

Until next time, cheers!!!

We only have three words for you “Free State Social.” Yup, from nowhere to one of the pre-eminent social media conferences in the midwest. If you aren’t going, you should be. At the very least join the Free State Social TweetUp in downtown Lawrence, Kansas, listed as a Gowalla Trip on the evening of May 29. The list of attendees for this meeting is amazing. The speakers are among some of the most influential in social media circles today. I’m betting there are going to be some scintillating conversations before, during and after the sessions.

Here’s what the meeting will be covering:

•Customer service
•Personal branding
•Blogger outreach
•News coverage
•Location-based social networking
•Future of social media

Chris Brogan has said (from the Free State Social website): “The good stuff is happening in the heart of America. It’s not just New York and LA that know what media can do for business. Lawrence is yet another hotspot of inventive, entrepreneurial spirits who see the new Web as a business tool par excellence.”

We’re going to be there. We hope we see you there too!

A few weeks ago we had the pleasure of hosting Matt Haeck (@matthaeck on Twitter), Randolph Robisno (@randolphrobisno) and Joe Garner (@joegarner) as they made Lightthread offices their Kansas City “Softlegs” tour stop. They had never visited here before and we were happy to show them a few local places like The WestSide Local before they played for an enthusiastic audience.

Matt’s stop was part of our promotion and development effort for Showigniter, an online music service that brings together bands, fans and venues. The system works like this: bands create an offer in any one of 328 markets that Showigniter currently supports, they publish the offer through social media channels like Facebook or Twitter and fans and sponsors pledge to bring the band to that city. No money is paid up front, but if enough money is pledged, the show ignites, the band and venue are paid and the band plays the show. Neat isn’t it?

We hope that a whole bunch of bands that otherwise find the logistics of booking tours cumbersome or frustrating will find the system useful and like Matt, Randolph and Joe, it will enable them to play cities they’ve never visited before. But this system and this new approach to bringing live music to your town won’t succeed without YOU. We love the idea of using Showigniter to book shows in non-traditional venues like house parties and to help bands from the indy music scene who might be still building their fan base to create gigs in places they otherwise wouldn’t have visited.

We are eager to hear your input, so feel free to leave comments!

Our hats also go off to Matt, Randolph and Joe for a fantastic concert!! There’s nothing like hearing their soulful tunes and soaring harmonies with friends in an intimate setting! We highly recommend that you catch them if you are near Nashville or happen to run across them on tour!

Here’s the live video that was recorded during the concert (By the way, early sound problems with UStream are fixed later in the recording)