Facebook has a lot of gadgets, buttons, links, and options available to its users and those using the network to advertise. There are thinks like the famous Like, the new subscribe button that just came to the network, sponsored stories, invitations to events, and now its newest is the recommendations bar that launched just last Thursday. We’ve seen things on other networks that are personally targeted and recommended, so its a surprise that Facebook took so long to get to it. They are often the network model, with other networks working off of their platform. Anyway, its just another sign that Facebook is slowly but surely sinking in popularity.
So, the recommendations, according to All Things D, function just as you’d expect them to. When a user is reading an article, viewing a product or page, or just browsing the web, they will reach the bottom of the page they are on, and recommendations will show in a classically designed bar. The recommendations are based on things that their friends have Liked and the only recommendations that appear will be related products or other articles from the same page. This, in effect, brings more value to the Like button, as it no longer only affects one product or article, but also can be a way to suggest things to friends. The Like can now function as a modern word-of-mouth strategy.
All Things D writes, “It’s one part of Facebook’s entire social plugin suite, a set of tools that hook into publishing platform backends to incorporate Facebook widgets into Web sites. The list of other items includes the ubiquitous “Like” button, “Subscribe” button and “Comments” sections.” All of the members of this “suite” are responsible for Facebook’s newfound success in the advertising world. With this new member, Facebook has brought in personal retargeting based on a user’s Friends list.
This new recommendations bar is available for web publishers to install on their pages, and it would be a wise move, indeed. Of course, with these new suggestions from friends, there is a great chance of bringing up clickthrough rates on things that appear in the Recommendations bar. It will function similar to the side bar that exists on Facebook now, showing certain pages and how many friends have liked said pages. This function that has already existed for a while has been relatively functional, but the Recommendations bar is an improvement to the method, being that it is available away from Facebook itself.
So, Facebook continues to improve to keep its place amongst the top internet names. It’s ever-growing advertising tactics have started to bring it recognition in the marketing world, and it’s becoming a decent competitor for advertising leaders. Although it’s got a long way to go, these new members of the “suite” are bringing in quite a bit of attention from businesses and advertisers. They’ve been quite effective so far, and they will probably continue to be. The Recommendations bar began as a limited pilot, but on Thursday of last week, the function was made available to all publishers.
