Last month, Facebook introduced Trending to its News Feed, allowing users to see top stories in pop culture, sports, politics, news and more. Now, a new feature has been introduced that can supplement Trending in connecting users with what’s going on in the world.
When one page tags another page, that post will now be shown to those who like the tagged page, even though they may not already like it. The following – courtesy of Facebook – shows a post from Bleacher Report discussing NBA stars James Harden and Dwight Howard dunking in practice, tagging them in the post. If a user likes Howard or Harden but not Bleacher Report’s page, that post will still show up in their News Feed.
“We look at many factors to make sure the most relevant stories appear in News Feed, including which posts are getting the most engagement (such as likes, comments, shares and clicks) across all of Facebook,” Facebook product manager Andrew Song said in a blog post. “We also consider which posts are getting the most engagement from people who like both the Page that posted and the Page that was tagged.”
This feature is similar to what’s seen with user pages – if one user is tagged in another’s photo, the user’s friends can see it in their News Feed even if they’re not friends with the other who posted the photo.
Outreach numbers may be difficult to track for different users. If one page tags another in a post, users who like the post may already like both pages. But while that’s a distinct and probable possibility, it can still help in further connecting the social media giant’s enormous user base.
