Twitter and Instagram have enjoyed considerable success getting celebrities to use their services and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) wants in on the action. In the last year, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) has hired a number of people to focus on roping in celebrities and making it easy for them to interact with their considerable fan base.
It also follows the social network’s launch in May 2013 of “verified” pages for celebrities and brands, using a blue-tick icon similar to the one Twitter embeds on its notable users’ profiles to distinguish high-profile accounts from fakes.
Now, according to a Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) spokesperson in a conversation with the website AllThingsD, Facebook has begun to test a mobile program that makes it easier for verified celebrities, and presumably their social media managers, to interact better with their fans while on the go.
“The idea: If a star pushed out a status update to fans that caused a rather large amount of chatter — like, say, Kobe Bryant’s late-night torrent of scattered thoughts from a few months ago — the new app would make it easier to see the swirling commentary from fans, and mix it up with them.”
Facebook making it easier to ‘mix it up’ with celebrities
Facebook didn’t disclose the size of the testing group but said that “we are currently testing some mobile features designed to help public figures interact with their fans”, and that “a small group of partners” is currently involved.
“The idea: If a star pushed out a status update to fans that caused a rather large amount of chatter — like, say, Kobe Bryant’s late-night torrent of scattered thoughts from a few months ago — the new app would make it easier to see the swirling commentary from fans, and mix it up with them.”
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is hoping that the new “VIP App” will take the smartphone out of the hands of managers and get actual celebrities interested in fan interaction.
Facebook News Feed updated
Earlier this month, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) made adjustments to its news feed algorithm in order to bring more transparency to its platform. The company explained that “there are on average 1,500 potential stories from friends, people they follow and Pages for them to see”, and the news feed algorithm prioritized somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 of them each day.
The company also said that it would be updating the algorithm so that “organic stories that people did not scroll down far enough to see” reappear higher up their news feed “if the stories are still getting lots of likes and comments.”
