Facebook is phasing out “Become a Fan” and replacing it with the already existing “Like” button. Why?

As Nick O’Neill writes on our sibling blog AllFacebook.com, “One of the major drivers of the verb change is that ‘Like’ performs much better than ‘Become A Fan.’ The other is that developers will be much more likely to implement ‘Like’ within their applications as it’s easier to integrate into other applications and websites.”

A Facebook spokesperson tells PRNewser, “In the next few weeks we will introduce a small language change that will allow people to connect to a Page by clicking ‘Like.’ This will replace ‘Become a Fan’ ads but will not affect the functionality of Pages at all.”

The implications for brands is that this potentially could help them build much larger audiences on Facebook. As we previously reported, social gaming has already changed communications on the Facebook platform, allowing brands to “buy” half a million fans with one campaign.

If all people have to do is “like” a brand to receive all of the same updates they would as when they decided to “become a fan,” we can expect numbers to shoot up even more. However, as they shoot up, brands will increasingly need to look beyond “number of fans” and into deeper metrics around engagement and e-commerce.

Here at PRNewser, we’re still waiting for the “dislike’ button.