Shortly after unveiling 'Smart Lists' for your friend lists, Facebook rolled out a new 'subscribe' button. A feature that allows you to 'follow' anyone on Facebook, even if you are not in their Facebook friends list. You can also choose to make your profile available for others to subscribe.
This new subscription feature has been rolled out with the intention of giving users more control over what or who they see in the News Feed and also stay updated with what's happening in other people's lives even if you do not know them personally.
"You also couldn't hear directly from people you're interested in but don't know personally - like journalists, artists and political figures." shares Zach Rait, a software engineer with Facebook. You can find the 'Subscribe' button on Facebook profiles next to 'Messages' button. What I like the most about this feature is that you can now customize your News Feed and choose to turn a blind eye towards some lame updates from your friends. What I fail to understand is that why the whole subscription hoopla now? Wasn't it Facebook's principle to be connected with 'people in your life'?
But thanks to this latest addition or perhaps their desperate attempt to be reminiscent of Google+, people now have more than 750 million Facebook profiles at their disposal. And let's not forget Facebook's infamous privacy controversies.
What happened to the whole 'Fan Page' concept, wasn't that a Facebook way of staying connected and updated with favorite artists, public figures or companies?
Having said that, here's an overview of what all you can do with this latest feature:
- Subscription to your profile is closed by default. You can choose to allow subscribers from 'subscriptions' button placed in your profile, below your display picture.
- You are automatically subscribed to all your friends on Facebook, and can choose what kind of updates you wish to see from them in your News Feed. For example: only important, most updates, life events, status updates, photos and videos or other activities etc.
- You can receive public updates from people who are not friends with you on Facebook.
- You can let other people receive your updates in their News Feed, even if you're not friends on Facebook.
- You can convert a Fan Page to Profiles, which will automatically convert your fans into subscribers. You can also combine your Facebook page with your Profile. (Please note that this feature is not open for every user yet)
- There is no limitation to the number of subscribers for a profile.
Although it may be a good idea for celebrities, public figures or even bloggers to be more personal with their fans or followers through this subscription feature. But if you are one of those who likes to keep a close tab on how your Facebook fans respond to your updates, campaigns and how they interact within your page, then I suggest that you stick with your Fan Page. Because let's not forget that you will be able to 'view insights' only through a fan page not a profile.
"Once you allow subscribers, you can decide who can comment and what notifications you get. You'll also see a Subscribers tab on your profile, where you can see who subscribes to you." explains Rait.
So, what do you think of this latest addition in Facebook? Do you think it's a much needed effort for connecting with more people on Facebook? Or think of this addition as a lame attempt to fit in to the new social networking trend (Which is so not the Facebook I used to know)?
And yeah, if you wish to stay connected with us on Facebook, we still have our Fan Page very much alive:
Source: Facebook Blog
Source: Facebook Blog
"You can convert a Fan Page to Profiles, which will automatically convert your fans into subscribers. You can also combine your Facebook page with your Profile."
How does one go about doing this?
Hi Daniel,
Initially when Facebook rolled out subscribe feature, they allowed few users like Ben Herr (Mashable) to migrate their Facebook fans into profile subscribers. Because when it comes artists, writers, journalists or bloggers it only makes sense to have just one account rather than juggling between a fan page and personal profile.
Unfortunately though, even after 3 months of introducing Subscriptions (this post was published in Sep), Facebook has not yet allowed every user to migrate their fans into subscribers. We'll surely let you know as soon as open up this feature for every Facebook user.