More New Facebook Features!

In an effort to stay competitive in the battle of the social networks, Facebook has rolled out yet another batch of updates. Although these updates are primarily geared toward personal profiles as opposed to pages, it’s still a good idea to take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the changes and figure out how they might somehow apply to you.

Subscribe Button

Think of the subscribe button as Facebook’s way of letting you friend someone without making them friend you back. Just like with Twitter or Google +, the connection between you and “followers” or vice versa doesn’t have to be mutual. By enabling the subscribe feature on your profile, anyone can subscribe to your updates and will consequently receive any public posts in their news feed without being your friend. This feature does not apply to pages because of the inherently public nature of pages already.

I can see this feature’s value for page administrators who also focus on developing their personal brand. If you are a public figure or thought leader with a lot of influence, the subscribe feature gives people a chance to follow you on a personal level. The subscribe feature breaks down that personal barrier that previously made people think twice about friending someone that they weren’t really friends with but were curious about what they had to say.

Smart Lists

If we’re comparing these new features to those of other social networks, think of Facebook’s new Smart Lists as the Circles of Google +. Facebook automatically puts your friends into categories based on their profile information. For example, you might notice now that you have a list for all of your college classmates, friends you work with, and friends who live in your area. You also have the option to manually categorize your friends based on how close you are with them, using the pre-made list categories, close friends, and acquaintances. If you’re worried about someone being offended for not making your close friend list, fear not, because the lists you make are only known to you personally.

Why Bother Making Lists?

Facebook explains that the benefits of lists are two-fold. First of all, lists give you control over who you share specific content with. For example, if you like to use your personal profile for both professional purposes as well as personal, you can put your professional contacts into one list and keep your close friends in a separate list. Then when you update your status, you can post it directly to the list of people who would find it most interesting.

Secondly, it allows you to refine your news feed so that you only see the updates that are most interesting or relevant to you. Personally, I find some friends post updates far too often. If you notice this pattern with someone, you can put them on a “Facebook timeout” and move them to your acquaintances list, and then you don’t have to see these updates unless you want to.

Who’s Sharing Your Status Updates?

This is my favorite new feature on Facebook, and it does in fact apply to pages as well as personal profiles. It is akin to having the ability to see who has retweeted you on Twitter. Now when someone has shared one of your status updates, it shows up underneath the post, in the same area as the Likes and Comments. It’s nice to know when your content is being shared and who’s sharing it so you can thank them or return the favor.

There’s nothing earth shattering or revolutionary here, so the time it takes to learn the new features is minimal. However, there have been stirrings about a major Facebook profile redesign to come soon, so make sure you get to know these new features before they roll out the next round of updates.