Yesterday, Facebook rocked the social media world with its latest announcements and updates to the social networking platform. Revolutionary sharing mechanisms, such as the 'Like' button and of course, the share button will be evolving into 'gestures' making sharing users' actions more applicable to their daily lives. Social media agencies and digital PR agencies will need to keep up with the changes, as news will be consumed differently, lifestyle and entertainment applications will be integrated directly within Facebook.
With newspaper application, Washington Post's Social Reader, which is built on Facebook's Open Graph, the stories that are shown are personalised to the reader based on their Facebook profile. As a result, PR companies will have to be more prescriptive on the stories they pitch to take these changes into account. News circulation will be based on who is reading what, rather than what is on the front page.
Creating a hub for entertainment is also one of the additional key points for the recent updates. Facebook want to be a 'social one stop shop' for listening to music and watching TV or movies. By teaming up with partners, such as Hulu for TV, Netflix for movies and Spotify for music - among many others - users will be able to share what they are watching or listening once they've allowed the app to connect to their profile. These activities will automatically update in the users' news feed as well as update tickers, sharing making watching TV or movies and even listening to music a more social experience. Friends will be able to see what their friends are watching and listening to in the ticker, which might prompt them to watch or listen to the same thing.
As the new updates unfold and more applications are added, sharing will become second nature to users within Facebook. The integration of these new features might just encourage users to be more social online across the world.