Facebook's "See-First" Button

Facebook recently rolled out the newest iteration of its algorithm that allows users to click a "see-first" button to see posts from their favorite friends prioritized in their newsfeeds. While Facebook totally botched their chance to bring back the best part about Myspace (Top 8, anyone?), Facebook is returning control of the newsfeed to its rightful place: the user. Imagine that. People didn't like an algorithm telling them the news they would like, no matter how logical the suggestion might seem. You couldve just gone to any house with a 5-year-old to find that out.

Facebook users have spoken. They want what they say they want and they want control over what they see. They now have an "opt-in" option to complement the "opt-out" option that has existed for about half a year now. Users have had the option to "unfollow" users that maybe they don't want to sever all connection with but really don't care what they have to say. Facebook can continue to prioritize posts within the newsfeed, but providing users with these two options is empowering. They essentially made users the Supreme Court of their feeds. Smaller courts (Facebook) can make calls as to what appears in Becky's feed but if it ultimately doesn't agree with the Constitution of Becky's Newsfeed, the highest court in the land gets to issue a precedent-setting ruling and change the landscape of the feed forever.

This colorfully over-wrought analogy serves to set up a thought about display advertising engagement. Social media users have long had the choice to follow their favorite brands, and there's no doubt that if a user likes a brand on social media they are more likely to purchase/recommend that brand offline. Could less effective forms of digital advertising (aka display) benefit from giving users a choice? It's clear that strategies that make the choice for the consumer (the Facebook algorithm, retargeting data, etc.) are invasive. Despite all the data that goes into each targeted display ad, users just may not enjoy the brand for "x" reason. Could display ad networks begin serving an option to "see first" on certain brands? Ad Networks could continue to target users and provide an "opt-out" button, effectively removing users from the retargeting list and creating a list of consumers that either enjoy the brand or are too lazy to click a button.

It's clear that humans crave choices. Being told what to do and what to buy within a personal social environment is about the same as being back in middle school while pop tells the kids how to spend their allowance. Users don't care how much sense the suggestion makes, if they don't like a brand they should have the choice to remove/deprioritize it from their results. It seems to be working for Facebook, maybe display advertising would benefit from a similar facelift.