After the successful release of the News Feed by Facebook, the company has introduced yet another feature that provides users with updates on the apps used and the activities of their friends. Facebook Follow is an action that lets user follow someone using Facebook mobile, and send the updates of their friends’ activities to the News Feed.
Through Facebook Follow, following your friends activities is made easier because wandering from app to app or from site to site to see what they’re doing is no more included in the picture. There’s a catch, though – you will be forever stuck with hundreds of Facebook ads as you browse along your News Feed.
How does it Work?
Facebook Follow allows users to view the content and activities done by friends who are subscribing to the same apps you subscribe to. When you click “Follow”, you will be able to automatically see the app contents of your Facebook friends, unless they make them private to themselves.
For instance, you follow a friend on Instagram via Facebook Follow. All the photos that they upload using Instagram will be instantly posted in your Facebook News Feed, except when they make the pictures private to themselves or with people other than you. In this matter, privacy matters are not a problem.
Developers’ Ideas on Follow
Facebook Follow is praised by most developers who connect to the users through Facebook. This new action reminds users to visit their apps as often as possible since their friends’ activities using such apps can be viewed in the News Feed and will be acted upon at will.
However, there might be developers who would not want to integrate Facebook Follow in their applications. The action might result to unwanted stealing of app content, decreased monetisation success and lower in-app engagement.
Facebook’s Future with Follow
Up until now, web services and mobile apps release their updates and other content through their individual in-app content feeds, a process that isn’t bringing in much monetisation in various app providers and in Facebook itself.
Through Facebook Follow, the company is able to monetise the app content effectively by means of Sponsored Stories. Now, the News Feed has started its omnipresence, updating users with more content and monetising that content at the same time. Facebook will be able to charge app providers for Sponsored Stories so that their content can be seen more frequently than the other apps’ content.
As Facebook grabs content from apps, incorporates ads in them and charges app providers for more content exposure, the referral traffic for the apps increases, and the earnings of Facebook skyrocket. This two-birds-in-one-stone strategy also maximises user log-in and activity time on Facebook, maintaining the average of 441 minutes per month for just one user. Most app providers who want more traffic to their applications will be more than happy to tag along this strategy and pay for more content publicity.
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