On Thursday, Facebook announced the development of Interests Lists, which will allow users to curate lists of interests they have and subscribe to content accordingly. Users can create their own lists to follow public content shared by their friends and other users organized by specific topics, and marketers might find the feature helps them reach relevant social audiences.
Crowdsourcing allows Facebook to rank and sort the articles based on the most frequently discussed topics on its network and offer users customized experiences based on their interests. While newspaper-style interest lists, such as business and politics, are among those recommended, users can get more specific with niche topics, such as vegan food or NHL teams.
For marketers, this will provide insight into the interests of its fans and followers. As Pages related to particular topics will be featured in interests, it might also provide marketers more exposure for their Facebook content. Additionally, the most popular topics across Facebook will demonstrate general trends and other top stories that marketers can user to inform news content marketing campaigns.
The feature is not currently rolled out to everyone. However, some users are seeing it now, and can opt-in to the service when prompted.
News content’s value as part of a social media marketing strategy has grown considerably in recent months as users look social channels to keep up with the latest industry developments and share articles with their friends. Brafton recently reported that news content containing valuable information was among the most frequently shared content.
