How to add the Facebook “like” button to the Thesis WordPress theme

Earlier this week I started noticing the Facebook “like” button popping up on some of my favorite sites. And then, my co-worker Jonathan installed it on our site at work.

When I saw that… I knew I had to have it on my blog. Plus I knew I had to master it for some of my McLane Creative clients.

It took some fiddling around but here is how I’ve gotten it to work. Follow these steps and you can set it up in about 10 minutes.

Please note: These instructions are for the Thesis theme for WordPress. If you’re looking for a completely customized WordPress theme you can build yourself, I recommend purchasing Thesis.

Step 1: Download and install the free Thesis OpenHook plugin.

Step 2: After activating the plugin, go to the settings link for Thesis OpenHook. On my blog it looks like “/wp-admin/themes.php?page=thesis-openhook/options.php”

Step 3: Scroll down to the hook you’d like to install the code at. I’m using “after post.” But here’s a list of all the hooks and what they are.

Step 4: Paste the following code into the hook you’d like use.

<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=<?php echo urlencode(get_permalink($post->ID)); ?>&layout=standard&show-faces=true&width=500&action=like&color scheme=light” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ allowTransparency=”true” style=”border:none; overflow:hidden; width:250px; height:60px”></iframe>

Step 5: Click the checkbox “Execute PHP on this hook.” This is important, you will get an error if you don’t click this checkbox!

Step 6: Press the “Little save button.”

Step 7: Like and retweet this post, telling everyone what a swell guy I am.

Bonus:As you can see I’ve also added a couple Tweetmeme buttons to the same location. You can download my code for that, just put your Twitter name in the [twitter_user_name] spot and you’re good to go.

Click here to download –> [download id=”6″]