Facebook follow button on pages

Changing your affiliation with the Facebook Pages follow button

Facebook has been making a lot of updates to Facebook Pages over the past few months. Not only did they roll out the Facebook reviews button, which let’s fans leave a review about a business, but now they have now rolled out the Facebook Pages follow button.

While the follow button was a feature they were testing for Facebook Pages in October, it’s finally here.

What this means is that instead of liking every Facebook Page, fans and customers have a choice. They can like a page or choose to follow Facebook Pages.

I consider this to be a major announcement because it changes the level to which fans and customers can engage with a Facebook Page.

Changing interactions with Facebook Pages

Previously, the Facebook follow button was a feature only reserved for Facebook Profiles.

This gave people the opportunity to friend people they knew personally and to follow people they didn’t.

For example, most people would send a friend request to a family member and follow a celebrity or public figure. This way they would be able to see updates from both people in their news feed without being friends with everyone.

Now, instead of liking a Facebook Page by becoming a fan and liking their page, you can choose to follow a page instead.

Following vs. Liking a Facebook Page

As I mentioned, this is pretty significant. Here’s why.

Previously, in order to interact with a Facebook Page, you could add them to an interest list or if you wanted to see their updates in your news feed, you had to like their page.

This is great if it’s someone you know and you support their business. But what if you want to see their updates in your news feed, but you don’t really want to endorse them (because that’s what liking a page essentially does). There really was no other option.

With the follow button for Facebook Pages, now you can selectively choose which pages you like and which ones you follow.

In both situations, this solves the problem of seeing their updates in the news feed and it let’s fans and customers be more selective about which pages they endorse to their friends.

How to use the Facebook Pages follow button

Step 1: Visit a Facebook Page

Step 2: Click the follow button

Facebook Pages follow button
Example of the Facebook Pages follow button.

Note: If you already liked a Facebook Page, the follow button will also be checked.

The dilemma with the news feed

One other thing that changed with the addition of the Facebook Pages follow button is that the “show in news feed” option no longer appears when you hover over the like button on a Facebook Page.

To ensure you see updates from a Facebook Page that you have liked, you also need to click the “follow button.”

Like a Facebook Page
Changes to the Facebook Pages like button.

Tip: If you want to see updates in  your news feed from a page, but don’t want to like the page, just click the follow button.

With the Facebook Pages follow button, you can decide which pages you endorse (like button) and which pages you support, but don’t want to endorse to your connections (follow button).

Your turn

Do you see yourself changing your habits and liking certain Facebook Pages and using the follow button on other Facebook Pages?

Leave a comment below and let me know if you plan to change how you interact with pages.