FACEBOOK SUBSCRIPTIONS: ON OR OFF?

 

IndecisionDo you tweet?  Do you have followers and do you follow others?  Are you on Google+?  How many circles do you have?  Do you get alerts that someone has added you on G+?  Do you read blogs?  How many do you subscribe to?  Facebook’s answer to follows, circles and subscriptions is their very own “subscribe” feature.  Is this just another attempt to access your information?  That depends…..

What’s the difference between a Friend, Fan or Subscriber?

Friend. Being someone’s Facebook friend generally shows a certain level of affiliation or friendship. Most well-known public figures have a fan page instead of a personal profile; especially because Facebook allows a maximum of 5,000 friends for a personal page. The Facebook blog states that the average Facebook user has 120 friends. So, generally a personal page will not have thousands of followers/friends. It should be noted businesses are not allowed to create a personal profile page. Facebook does not allow it.

Fan. A fan is someone that likes your business. Fan pages are typically used for businesses and public figures.  A fan page is similar to a subscription in that anyone can view the activity on your fan page and even participate in the conversation. Fan pages allow multiple administrators to control the content on the page unlike a personal profile page that is controlled by just one individual who “owns” the page. One important feature of a fan page is that you can get insights, metrics that tell you about your fans demographics and behaviors on your fan page. Another great feature of fan pages is that you can customize landing tabs and add applications that give the page more of an interactive function.

Subscriber. Currently, you can only subscribe to personal profiles.  What’s new about subscriptions is that subscribers are able to interact with your personal profile regardless of whether or not you are friends with them (assuming they have enabled the subscribe button, that is).  Before subscriptions, only friends that you had approved were allowed to interact with your page. What’s great about the subscribe button is that you can have an unlimited amount of subscribers, whereas you are still limited to having no more than 500 friends on a personal page. When you are subscribed to someone, you can comment, like or share any post that the individual has made visible to the public. Also, once you subscribe to a person, you can filter how much information you see from them.

 

For example, if you were to subscribe to Mari Smith, this drop down would be visible for you to choose from:

Mari Subscribe Drop Down


This allows you to define what information and how much of it shows up in your newsfeed.

How do I enable the subscribe button?

To enable the subscribe button on your personal profile page follow the steps on this link. On the upper right hand side you will see the “allow” button:

This immediately activates the subscribe button. After you press the allow button it will  take you to this screen:

This box allows you to filter who can comment on your posts and what notification you receive about other people.

How do I subscribe to someone else?

If the individual/public figure enables the subscribe button, all you have to do is go to their profile, and click “Subscribe” on the upper right hand side. Similar to what was shown on Mari’s page. What’s great about this feature is that once you’ve subscribed to someone, you have multiple choices in determining how much of that other person’s information you are interested in hearing about

Pro’s of subscribing

There are many reasons to consider turning on subscriptions and subscribing to others.  The three main reasons are:

  • To increase public engagement.
  • To allow peeps who are not friends to like or comment on your posts.
  • To engage more deeply with fans/followers.

Cons of subscribing

There are, however, reasons to not turn on subscriptions.  Two main reasons might be:

  • The abundance of comments could be overwhelming to your personal friends.
  • Information shared defaults to public unless the audience selector is adjusted under your privacy settings.

To turn on subscriptions or not really comes down to your comfort level of sharing information.  Even with the controls that Facebook has put in place for you to limit who sees your information and if and/or how they are allowed to interact, some people will probably opt-out of this feature.  Two examples of where the subscription feature makes the most sense are: 1. If you use your personal profile as an extension of your professional presence online and 2. If you are a public figure who wishes to enable a greater degree of interaction with your fans, constituents, etc.

We hope that we are helpful in clarifying these Facebook changes! If you have any further questions, you can contact us through our Facebook page, or by commenting below. Stay tuned for our upcoming blog about the NEW Facebook Timeline Features.

Leah Kube , is Slice‘s Social Media Assistant, and blog writing enthusiast. She also studies Psychology at University of Maryland University College, and is an avid researcher and writer.
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