Social media giants, Facebook, are adding another new feature to your Facebook account. Don’t worry Facebook fans; they aren’t changing Facebook chat again. This new feature is similar to the other new feature which shows your friend’s photos/albums on the right hand side of your screen. Rather than show a random photo or two from one of your friend’s Facebook albums, it shows a status update of your from 2009/2010. The most common way to see these past status updates is to view a photo album.
Ok, so excuse my status update, I was pretty into a Slipknot song a year ago on this day (August 15th). But you can view any comments or likes made on the status update and, if you made multiple status updates, view all updates made on that day.
So, it seems like a pretty cool feature right? But what’s the point of it from a marketing/advertising standpoint?
Well, it can do a few different things. First, it can remind you of what you liked to do, listen to, eat, etc. from a year ago. For me, when I saw this, I thought of the song and how much I liked it. This in turn got the song and band in my head, which makes me want to listen to all their music.
Another example is a few days ago I saw a status about how I achieved a certain level in a particular video game. I saw it and remembered how accomplished I felt but then felt compelled to beat my previous goal. That started a pretty intense three hour Call of Duty session with some friends. It allowed me to reconnect with some friends I haven’t seen in a while and also allowed me to relax for a bit. (By the way, I never beat my previous goal.)
“But Kevin, I don’t post weird, deep, lyrical status updates or video games and how good I think I am. I post about runny noses. How does that work?”
That’s fine, so what did you do to fight your runny nose? Did you use a lot of tissues? Now that I have you thinking the tissues you used, did you have the nice soft tissues or rather the hard, rough ones? Maybe you should steer away from the rough, hard ones and buy some soft ones.
Or maybe you curled up on the couch with some orange juice and a movie? What movie did you watch? I would assume you enjoyed the movie or the orange juice? Would you re-watch or recommend that movie, or orange juice I guess, to anyone? In this example, you moved from a runny nose, to thinking about what tissues you should buy next, a movie you enjoyed and could re-watch, or what kind of orange juice you enjoy most.
With a bit of thinking and remembering, you’ve moved from reading about a runny nose to thinking about branding and what your favorite brands are.
Second, they can remind you of why you shop, eat, visit, use, etc. at a specific spot or use a certain product. For example, if you visited a particular restaurant and did or did not enjoy the service or food, most people post it on Facebook. You could, a year from now, see that status update and remember how great that food was and look to go re-visit that restaurant.
What are your thoughts on the new feature or have you noticed it yet?
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