Last week a fan spotted an abnormal occurrence that was showing on our Facebook page; a “subscribe” button. Nestled directly to the right of the Like button, the subscribe button appeared, mirroring the subscribe for users implementation. A Facebook rep confirmed that the Subscribe for Pages was being tested.
One of the issues that has arose since the switch from ‘Be A Fan’ to ‘Like’ was that many users may want to follow a brand without implicitly stating that they ‘like it.” The Subscribe for Pages would let users stay engaged with page messaging without adding the page to their shared “Likes” section.
A Facebook spokesperson told us the following about Subscribe for Pages:
“We are currently testing the ability to subscribe to Pages with a small group. This feature allows people to receive updates from Pages without liking the Page. We have no further details to share at this time.”
Currently users’ subscribers are shown as a number, much like how pages display likes. If the test was successful and pushed live, a two number system could be rather confusing. Additionally, a subscribe for pages could thwart some ad targeting if users didn’t have to like the page.
The subscribe feature is only available to a small test group at the moment.
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