Facebook now wants you to ask “fans” for more
Facebook has been persuading businesses for years to buy Page likes if they wanted their businesses to reach the News Feed. While this may have been true in the beginning, Facebook has continually revamped their algorithms and promotions, and the “like” is no longer what it used to be.
If you need further proof, look no further than the newest Facebook feature. Marketers are seeing restriction on Pages, which is in turn decreasing the number of people who can see their posts, which decreases the value of the “like.” In an effort to combat this, Facebook has created a new echelon above the “like.”
“See First” adds another layer to the system
A new tier for Pages to aspire to if they want to reach the people that follow their brand. The new tier, “See First,” is live. If you are in the United States, you should be able to go to any of the pages you follow: friends, Pages (brands), and public figures and add them to your “See First” list. Think of this list as your “A-List,” the brands and people that you want to “see first” when you look at your News Feed. When you add someone to your See First list, you will indeed see their posts first, along with a blue star.
When you think about this “A-List” versus the multiple hoops Page’s had to jump through to ensure they were being seen and “liked,” See First really has the potential to be the next “big thing” for marketers; of course, this only works if your followers add you to their lists. If followers do add brands, influencers, and favorite people to their See First lists, it will be much easier to push marketing and sales messages to their News Feeds.
Time to nag your followers?
With this new features, the Facebook News Feed also has the potential to become more than just a collection of your friends’ adventures. If you follow several news sources, you have the ability to turn your feed into a news reader by adding The New York Times and the like to your See First list. If music is your thing, adding all your favorite artists to your See First list could turn your News Feed into a live Rolling Stone-esque magazine feed. The same goes for writing, sports, fashion, and any number of other special interest topics.
Greg Marra, the Facebook product manager in charge of See First, downplayed the impact of See First on marketers, saying, “I don’t think the impact is going to be very large.” Any time Facebook shakes things up, marketers tend to take notice. Whether or not it has a long-term impact remains to be seen, but I’d keep my eye on this feature, as marketers may be actively nagging followers to add them to their See First lists.
What do you think? Is this just another way for Facebook to shake things up, or could this become a useful way to reach followers (or follow your favorite brands)?
