Facebook says it is now trying out a new feature that will assist in minimizing how long you get to log in to news sites. Thereby enabling paying news subscribers to connect their Facebook accounts to their subscriptions.
According to the social media company, the primary goal is to “provide a better news consumption experience on Facebook”. And also enabling publishers to ” deepen their relationships with subscribers”.
How the Facebook feature works
Below is how the feature works:
Facebook recognizes a subscriber from one of its publishers’ partners. And the subscriber is later invited to connect their Facebook account to their subscription account. Anytime the subscriber taps an article link on Facebook by that publisher. The user will not have to start logging in to his or her account and also won’t hit the paywall of the publisher.
Facebook tests the feature with some publishers
Facebook has been trying out the new feature with some group of publishers. Of which it says shows promise for engagements, as well as content distribution. In June this year, subscribers in the test group who connected their subscription accounts on Facebook clicked on 111percent more articles, the company mentioned.
And as soon as the subscribers connect their account, Facebook says it will show the subscriber so much content from that particular publisher.
The Atlanta Journal-constitution, The Athletic, and the Winnipeg Free Press have also been assessing the feature. They also presented statements for Facebook’s blog post that outlined a “frictionless” user experience. However, it seems a little bit early to term it a success.
The vice president of digital at Winnipeg Free Press, Christian Landon mentioned in a blog post that one of the most popular complaints by users is that they have to log in all the time.
Christian said:
“People have account and password fatigue”. Adding that “we expect that this will help us to build longer and more frequent engagement with our customers”.
Facebook released its News tab to the US Audiences
Facebook released its News tab to the US audiences in June intending to pay publishers that took part. To be certified as a partner. Facebook says publishers must pass their integrity standards and also have very large audiences. The company said it would depend on third-party fact-checkers to watch posts for clickbait and copyright violation. And also monitor posts for sensational content. Some weeks back, the company said it was planning to spread the News to other countries. However, it was a little bit unclear on the timeline, saying it would be around “six months to a year”.
It would be a surprise if news publishers were cautious of going into another agreement with Facebook. As its track record with news and how it acts towards publishers isn’t the best.
In recent years, it has released several disappointing news initiatives, including its “Instant Articles”. And also, its Newsfeed algorithm is widely condemned for draining ad revenue from local news in particular. In the early and mid-2010s, as publishers placed resources into video production to get some of Facebook’s Video traffic. It was said that the company had juiced the numbers. Facebook later minimized the types of content published by pages all in the name of upgrading the content of family and friends.
The social media company plans to add more publisher partners
The social media company announced in its recent blog post that it would be including more publisher partners. And is “actively working on an approach that would allow subscribers to directly initiate the account linking process on publisher websites.
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