Question

Is there a way to force the like button (styled as button_count) to show zero likes?

That is the preferred solution, to match Twitter and Goolge +1.

As a underirable alternative: any tips to dynamically shift spacing around depending on the presence of the button counter?

Answer 1

You can fake it, what I did is I look for a post with already have likes on it, using firebug I replaced the count with “0” then have it screenshot, then I cropped (default width: 90 pixels. height: 20 pixels.) the like button with now zero count and make it the background of the like button.

<style>
    div.like {background:url(likewithzerocount.png) no-repeat left center}
</style>
<div class="like">
    <fb:like href="#" send="false" layout="button_count" width="90" show_faces="false"></fb:like>
</div>