Facebook launched a new feature today called the “Subscribe Button”.  In the words of Facebook, the new feature will encourage users to “hear from people you’re interested in, even if you’re not friends.” (a.k.a. instead of adding somebody as a friend you can just subscribe to their posts and see their updates in your news feed).

Click here to see all the ins and outs of the new feature from Facebook and to activate the button on your Facebook Profile.

Below are a few of the more important tidbits you should know before using it:

  • Once you activate subscriptions, anybody who adds you as a friend will automatically be “subscribed” to your posts
  • If you choose to accept that person as a Facebook friend, they will no longer be subscribed to your posts (they will be a friend)
  • If you choose to decline that person as a Facebook friend, they will no longer be subscribed to your post
  • Friends are capped at 5,000 but you can have an unlimited number of subscribers
Therefore, if users ask to be your friends and you don’t really want to accept them, you can leave them in limbo and they will still see any update that you make “public”.  That is the other important item to keep in mind; the only updates subscribers will see are those updates your make “public” when posting (if you choose to only share with your friends, your subscribers won’t see that content)
 
Oh, and feel free to subscribe to my profile to see this new feature in action :)