Facebook tests shortcut buttons to rivals like Snapchat and Twitter

Facebook appears to be warming up a bit to other social networks. The company is testing displaying links to your other social media accounts prominently on your Facebook profile.

My colleague Matt Navarra spotted the change on his account while using the iOS app. While you’ve been able to add links to your other social media accounts under the Contact Info portion of the About section for a while now, this is the first time said links have taken button form and been displayed so blatantly on your profile’s front page.

Facebook on iOS is now letting you display shortcuts to your Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat accounts pic.twitter.com/Bk6VaJR9LG

— Matt Navarra ⭐️ (@MattNavarra) February 17, 2017

There are even little icons to accompany the various networks. Curiously though, the Snapchat button is the only one that doesn’t actually work.

While I could set links to other social networks in my Contact info, the links did not show up in my profile. However, they did show up when viewing my colleague’s account on my Android device, so chances are the feature is connected to your profile rather than you app version or OS. The buttons are not visible on desktop so far.

It’s just a test for now, so there’s no guarantee it will be rolling out to the masses. Still, I’m curious about the reasoning behind the move.

Mark Zuckerberg published an epic manifesto yesterday that shifted Facebook’s mission from simply connecting friends and family, towards “developing the social infrastructure for community.” Perhaps that means becoming a little friendlier to the different ways people communicate, too.

Update 2:42 PM ET: A few people have pointed out that they’ve seen these features for some time. It’s possible Facebook is simply rolling out the test a bit more widely now. We’ve contacted Facebook for more information and will update this post if we hear back.