Facebook announced a subscribe button that will now be available for third-party websites, a development that extends the social networking platform’s existing subscription service and encourages increased engagement between Facebook and websites.
When you click the subscribe button on a website, you’ll see that site’s updates in your news feed. Additionally, your action will be shared so that your friends can subscribe, too, if they’re interested in the content.
The subscription button goes beyond the existing Facebook like and recommendation buttons that are currently visible on websites. As Mark Walsh writes for MediaPost, “For Web publishers, the latest plug-in from Facebook is yet another way to try to boost engagement with their sites and content by harnessing the stickiness and size of the world’s largest social network.”
Facebook announced the website subscription button during the LeWeb conference, but there’s no information yet as to when the feature will be universally available. There are, however, an initial group of sites that have the subscription button, including Today.com, The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast.
We’re excited for the subscription button to become available. Not only are we fans of the sharing implications, but we also think the tool will be a great motivator for site owners to maintain a regularly updated website. After all, what’s the reason for someone to subscribe to your site if updates are only sporadically available? We can’t stress enough how important a strong, optimized website is to the success of a digital marketing strategy, and keeping your site updated with fresh content is one of the best ways to remain visible in search engine traffic. Add Facebook to the mix, and you’ve got another opportunity to reach an even wider audience that can interact with your content and updates using Facebook’s built-in features such as likes, comments and shares.
Will you change your website and content creation strategies as a result of the new Facebook subscribe button?
Image via Facebook
