Poor, poor celebrities. It's probably overwhelming to be famous and on Facebook.
The volume of posts,
comments, likes and mentions on any given day is vastly higher for
well-known people than it is for mere mortals. Getting a grasp on the
quick-moving chatter and knowing when to speak up takes effort.
Facebook is working on a
new mobile tool that would make it easier for the VIPs to slog through
the noise and better communicate with their fans, according to a report from AllThingsD.
A Facebook spokesperson
confirmed in an e-mailed statement that the company is working on
"mobile features designed to help public figures interact with their
fans" and said it was only testing them with a select group of people
for now.
It's not clear how the
feature makes it easier for the super-popular to sift through mentions
from followers, or what was so difficult about doing it from the current
mobile apps.
It's likely the feature
will be useful to social media professionals more than actual
celebrities. The more important the person, the smaller the chance that
they are checking their own Facebook page to see what their friends are
up to and post selfies.
It's common for a social
media manager to use the social network on an actor or musician's behalf
to post information about public appearances, carefully chosen
snapshots and other updates.
The helpers aren't just
there to save famous people time. Celebrities are lucrative brands that
often depend on a carefully crafted and controlled public image.
Facebook wants to be a place where they can manage that image.
Twitter has dominated as a
platform where the famous can broadcast their latest news and have some
casual back and forth with fans. Some high profile people do use the
site to communicate all on their own, as evidenced by the many
entertaining late night ramblings and Twitter fights.
Facebook has tried other
Twitter-inspired features over the past year, including rolling out
hashtags and offering verified pages to separate the impostors from the
real public figures. The company is not shy about taking features that
have been successful on other platforms and adding them to its own.
If Facebook can take
over as a place where the famous go first to make an important
announcement, or even a denial, it could ratchet up the company's
reputation as a go-to news source. The association would also lend some
additional "cool" to the site, which is edging into its older age (for a
social network) and concerned about staying youthful and relevant.
But some folks online were complaining about the perceived elitist nature of special treatment for big shots.
"Dear Facebook: Put away the red carpet for celebs, we're happy with just friends," wrote Twitter user Tom Flowers.
