This article was published on December 27, 2011

Is Facebook testing new ‘Check out this idea’ custom action?


Is Facebook testing new ‘Check out this idea’ custom action?

Update: It transpires that ‘Check out this idea’ isn’t actually a feature that has been implemented or tested by Facebook and is not part of Sponsored Stories. The custom action is because the Page is using a 3rd party app to publish to its Page.

Sponsored Stories aren’t everyone’s favorite Facebook feature, but as All Facebook reports, it looks like the friends’ recommendation marketing tool is being cranked up a notch with some new call-to-actions being rolled out.

Just to recap, Sponsored Stories are initiated when one of your Facebook friends ‘Likes’ or otherwise interacts with a brand’s Page or Facebook app. Their ‘story’ is thus generated in your News Feed and serves to ‘recommend’ a product or service to you.

As was alluded to at Facebook’s f8 Conference back in September, new action-inducing items were promised, with some speculating that these may include words such as ‘Want’, ‘Buy’ or ‘Read’. But as Ryan Cohn, CEO at What’s Next Marketing points out on All Facebook, marketers are now beginning to incorporate ‘Check out this idea’, as you can see in the screenshot below:

It’s not clear yet how many people are now seeing these new changes, or whether this is just an initial test to monitor how well this new call-to-action performs, but it is likely we’ll see more similar changes in the weeks and months that follow, as Facebook strives to make its platform a core component of businesses’ marketing strategies.

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