Facebook Tests New Animations When Sharing a Post in the News Feed

Facebook is testing a new way to make your shared Feed posts stand out, with animated graphics that appear on the post as users scroll by.

As displayed in this video from social media expert Matt Navarra, through this new process, when you go to share a Facebook post to your News Feed, you’ll have the option to add a colorful animation and/or background to add to your shared update.

As you can see, there’s a range of different animations and backgrounds to choose from. 

Once you’ve added your chosen animation (if you choose to), it will then be displayed to other users as they scroll over your update in their feed.

The feature appears to be in limited testing – you can see in the first video above that when it is available, you’ll see a new ‘Share Your Reaction in a Post’ notifier at the bottom of the main visual.

It’s sort of like a Stories-style response option for regular Feed posts, adding another element to the process to ideally help increase engagement. And definitely, it will make posts stand out – but then again, if everyone starts using them, it could get a bit overwhelming to have all these smiley face emojis and confetti animations spewing out at you as you scroll by.

But Facebook would have the data on the rate of post sharing, and it would know that shared posts only contribute a small amount to most people’s overall Feed activity. As such, the risks in this sense are likely low, but still, any generic additions run the risk of getting old fast once every other user has access.

For brands, the option could also provide a means to help boost your promotions through UGC. By collaborating with the right people, you could get them to re-share your latest updates with their followers, with these new animations attached, which could help to bring more attention to your initiatives.

That is, of course, if it gets a full launch. We’ve asked Facebook for more detail on the option, and the test/launch pool for it, and we’ll update this post if/when we hear back.

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