Facebook announced on Monday, March 25, that pages will now feature the ability to reply to individual users, rather than a comment some time afterwards.
In addition, responses will be posted under the original comment with further responses following. Conversation threads are to be ordered based on what is most relevant to the user, based on what posts receive the most likes, which posts feature interaction from friends and which posts feature the most spam reports.
“You and your readers will have the ability to reply directly to comments left on your Page content and start conversation threads, which will make it easier for you to interact directly with individual readers and keep relevant conversations connected,” Journalism Program Manager Vladim Lavrusik said in a blog post.
All pages with 10,000 likes will automatically receive this feature. Pages with fewer followers have the chance to opt-in until July, when they are scheduled to automatically receive the feature.
Pages such as the Huffington Post’s and SportsCenter’s tested the feature out over coverage of President Obama’s inauguration and Super Bowl weekend, respectively. The HuffPost’s inauguration coverage generated over 600 comments with their own thread, and SportsCenter’s Super Bowl coverage gave fans the chance to interact with former NFL player and coach Herm Edwards.
The new feature is only available on the desktop for now, but is expected to be rolled out to mobile versions in the future.
“After months of testing, we have seen how the new feature can improve conversations and be used to start open dialogues with the community,” Lavrusik said in the post.
