Facebook just implemented an update to that allows users to share any status update created by a friend that they see in their News Feeds, placing greater emphasis on the act of story-sharing. Prior to this update, users could only share stories from the News Feed if they contained hyperlinks. As a user, sometimes the content I want to share most isn’t a link to an article my friend has shared on his wall; sometimes it’s simply a funny status update or a photo from the previous weekend’s nocturnal shenanigans. Now, whether it be a link, photo, or even a simple text status update, a user can share that story on their own wall, thus generating an additional layer of sharing. Additionally, users will be able to view the number of times a story has been shared as well as the specific shares as well, so long as both users are friends or the user has shared the story with the public.
Users, Brands, and Facebook should ultimately benefit from this new feature. Here’s why:
- For users, explicit sharing is more meaningful and compelling than implicit sharing. As apposed to implicit meta-stories told in third-person narrative, (stories about stories, e.g. “Justin Oh commented on Christopher Tuff’s status.”) in which sharing is passively inherent to certain types of activities, explicit stories in which a friend is the narrator can create greater impact and possesses greater potential to elicit interactions with those stories. I’m much more likely to like my friend’s status update that shares his friend’s status update rather than like a story about my friend who liked his friend’s status update told to me in third-person by Facebook.
- Brands have more opportunities to become the center of conversation. I can’t think of how many times the Skittles Facebook page has been the topic of conversation with a friend. Until now, there hasn’t been a seamless way to share their hilarious status updates directly from the News Feed. Brands that create engaging content for the News Feed will now have the ability to have more of their content shared by fans to their friends. This notion of leveraging current fans to reach friends of fans isn’t anything new and definitely seems to be the direction Facebook keeps focusing on. Conversely, for brands who aren’t producing engaging News Feed content, this change simply signifies more barriers to reaching their fans (as well as friends of fans). As users interact with more friends and brands that they increase its affinity score within EdgeRank by engaging with other users and brands.
