Facebook users simply aren’t sharing as many good old-fashioned text posts as they used to. We touched upon this topic earlier in the week when Facebook unveiled its new colored status backgrounds. According to a report published in April, Facebook’s community is ditching personal posts in favor of links to external content, such as viral videos, news articles, and memes.
Facebook’s latest attempt to get you sharing more is to serve you messages atop your News Feed — the same place it claims to only show you things you’re interested in. Facebook calls these messages “moments;” others may call them spam.
Not to be confused with its Moments photo app, the self-described “marketing program” will consist of bold visuals that depict a particular holiday or event, such as Thanksgiving or the supermoon. Under the images will be text that prompts you to either check out more about the moment or to post about it yourself.
Facebook claims the messages will give you ways to connect with friends during special events, help you discover fun and interesting cultural moments, and celebrate historic occasions that “continue to make the world more open and connected.” That’s code for “share more personal info so we can learn more about you and sell more advertising.”
For the less cynical among us, there are some perks to the initiative. For starters, Facebook is launching a bunch of new holiday greeting cards that boast cute animated visuals. A total of 18 custom-designed, festive cards are currently available, which you can check out in the video above.
“We care about our community and want to make their experience more delightful with the launch of this program,” writes Facebook in its blog post announcing the feature. “This is just the beginning and we’ll continue to work to make these messages better for our community around the world.”
