It feels like it's been a while since Facebook launched a new feature or feature test. And by a while I mean, like, a couple of weeks.
But good news! They're testing something new! And while many of their recent announcements have centered around Facebook's paid ad platform, I'm happy to announce that this one centers around organic updates ... although I'm sure it will eventually play a role in paid advertising, too.
So, what's this new feature in beta? Ranked Comments. Sounds intriguing, eh? We learned about it from the fine folks at AllFacebook, and they're aptly pointing out its similarities to Reddit -- so if you've ever up-voted or down-voted content on their site, you might have an idea what this feature is like.
Without further ado, here's everything you need to know (well, everything we know so far) about the newest Facebook feature being tested out for brand pages.
What Are Ranked Comments?
Ranked comments are a test to let the most engaging comments on brands' page posts rise to the top of the list. That means if ten people comment on a page post, and the fifth comment gets 15 Likes while the other comments get juts one or two Likes, that fifth comment will show up as the first comment in the list. So it's not about who gets to it first; it's about whose comment is the crowd-pleaser. Here's an example of what it looks like, courtesy of AllFacebook.
As you can see, the comments aren't listed in order of the time they've been posted. The first comment was posted after the third comment, but still shows up first in the list, presumably because it received more Likes. However, it appears there may be something else behind the "engagement" definition being used here -- namely comments -- because the fourth comment has the most Likes, but doesn't appear at the top of the list. It isn't totally clear how much more important comments are than Likes; for example, whether it's better to have 10 comments or 20 Likes. It also appears that if people choose to hide a comment, it will result in that comment getting sent nearer to the bottom of the list.
This feature is not available to everyone yet. It is simply being tested with a few big names and brands.
How Will Ranked Comments Help Marketers?
Well ... by bringing the best comments to the top (which sort of reminds us of LinkedIn's "Best Answer" feature in LinkedIn Answers). Think of it as the highest quality comment getting the most visibility. I mean, isn't it frustrating when a post gets 15 comments, and the twelfth one is just so spot on but nobody really sees it, because just the first three or so are visible? I mean, you love that people are commenting things like, "Spot on!" or "Hahaha," but it's certainly no replacement for a well thought-out comment that really gets the conversation going. Now, those comments that get people Liking and keep the conversation going -- in other words, the comments that help boost your engagement and, by extension, your EdgeRank and visibility in the Facebook News Feed -- are getting more air time.
But this also means those comments that are really negative that receive a lot of engagement will be bubbling to the top, too. So if you post content to your brand page that doesn't strike a user's fancy, that user just happens to tell the world about it, and he/she totally nails it according to the amount of people agreeing via Likes and comments, that's the content that will get the most visibility. You know, the content you don't really want your social reach seeing.
This seems to be a step toward addressing what might be a weak spot in Facebook's algorithm -- that page posts that receive a ton of negative engagement still reap the benefits of EdgeRank, and get visibility in the News Feed. So it's feasible that your brand page could be getting visibility and growing reach off of a page post that is only getting feed-time due to the hordes of people who really don't like that post at all. Now, theoretically, people wouldn't Like a page because they saw a post with negative comments, but we all know not everyone's doing super-thorough research when they Like a Facebook page. They might just see the brand name and thumbnail in their News Feed and click that thumbs up button, or see the first couple of comments that happen to be positive, yet don't represent the sentiment of the majority. This tweak, however, could help address that, bringing the feelings that the most people feel to the forefront.
What do you think of the new Facebook Ranked Comments feature? Are you excited to see it (maybe) roll out to all pages?
Image credit: Frenkieb
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Chris 12:49 PM on November 14, 2012
Great article and insight. I did find it a little ironic that I couldn't find a way to 'like' it and share easily from iPhone viewing.
Rick Noel 12:50 PM on November 14, 2012
Nice post Corey. The Facebook "Ranked Comments" feature is going to be a great incentive for leaving high quality, maybe at times controversial, clever comments. It makes sense for Facebook to surface to the top for the most engaging content to enhance the Facebook user experience, because, like Google, Facebook lives or dies based on user experience.
Jonathan Thompson 1:04 PM on November 14, 2012
I love reading these articles. This new feature for Facebooks seems neat. I am curious the implications of a negative comment getting high ranking. I think people who monitor company pages should establish contingency plans for when comments get some anti-love. Thanks again for the useful information.
hasnain 1:07 PM on November 14, 2012
I noticed this on my page a couple of weeks ago. I have this nested comments option on my page but I am not sure if it is ranking the top comments yet. Here is the link to the page. https://www.facebook.com/bloggingcommunity
karen rice 1:16 PM on November 14, 2012
Personally I think this is an awful idea. These comments are streams of conversation. Many need to be read in order to understand the flow of the discussion. Sorting them by "rank" out of their contextual order will make it very difficult to follow the conversation. Suppose the "best comment" has nothing to do at all with the OP and is in response to some other comment in the stream?!
Cakap Niaga 1:18 PM on November 14, 2012
Agree with Rick Noel's comment (above).
Brad 1:20 PM on November 14, 2012
I am curious if 'shares' will also play a role in the rankings. I would personally think a share, like a re-tweet, is of similar value to a comment.
Jim 1:43 PM on November 14, 2012
I agree with Karen- while this idea may be part of what makes Reddit so fun, it's not well-suited to facebook. Seems like Zuck's just trying to tack on as many new features to boost that IPO value...
Zach 1:48 PM on November 14, 2012
Really good point Karen rice... and I was thinking the same thing until I thought about the fact that people would probably be commenting on someone's actual post if it were directed towards them. This would allow for the most engaging conversations to be at the top, and allow you to manipulate who goes to the top. Groups of people saying your brand sucks probably won't continue commenting on the same post, but if someone says something good you can respond to their post to get them to respond again and hopefully getting others to respond positively on that comment.
LRTgraphics 1:49 PM on November 14, 2012
Useful insight but I am not convinced. In theory - I believe that most users are more likely to read the comments at the bottom, not at the top. Who wants to scroll to the top when there are thousands of comments. While they might be inclined to scroll to the top and read the first few, I still am not convinced about this type of engagement or platform. I couldn't agree more with Karen, comments will be taken out of context and it will now be hard to get consumers to have a conversation. Isn't conversation what facebook is all about?
elaine slaughter rakoczy 2:17 PM on November 14, 2012
Wow, interesting feature in beta, ty Hubspot, you guys so rock FB needs something positive now after the paid advertisement snafu/gaffe for brands! Wonder what Mark Cuban thinks? http://readwrite.com/2012/11/13/mark-cuban-facebooks-sponsored-posts-are-driving-away-brands
Kane 2:17 PM on November 14, 2012
Would seem to junk up the flow of a commenting stream... I guess with big brands, that probably isn't an issue since comments are just flung at their posts, but with smaller pages, where comments are often relative to other comments, this might be odd... maybe they could number the order so someone could follow sequence if they wanted to...
Isabella 2:18 PM on November 14, 2012
I completely agree with Karen. That was what came to my mind too. Might depend on the type of business, but in the hospitality or destination sector there's often a conversation going on in the comments. Such a feature, however, could be great if you can choose to activate/disactivate it for every single post.
Leah Van Rooy 2:59 PM on November 14, 2012
Great post about the upcoming Facebook changes. I can see where this could be really useful for brands, but on the flip side could be harmful with negative comments. With that said, we shouldn't let the "haters" hold back progress...it's like those businesses who said they didn't want to be on social media because people might say something bad about them... Lets roll the dice and have confidence in our brands/products.
Paula Steger, Artistic Laser Productions 3:30 PM on November 14, 2012
I personally think having negative comments rank the same as positives is a good thing. A)If someone has a complaint about you that enough other people agree with them, isn't that a very clear way of making you aware there's an issue you need to address? B) Having it rank high gives you the widest audience to make aware of your willingness to accept criticism and (where appropriate)take action to correct issues.
Peter 10:02 PM on November 14, 2012
Reading between the lines it would seem to me that it would encourage people to make (positive) comments about their own comments, which is good, drives traffic. On the other hand wouldn't this ranking system just play havoc with a conversation, as often third parties comment on what second parties had to say. Whadya think?
Annie Kile 11:02 PM on November 14, 2012
I got as far as the part where I'm informed that the rank changes the order of the comments. Quite often comments are a conversation. This will make it rather difficult to follow ideas in a sequential manner. I agree that this will somehow be tied to paid advertising. However, the notion that comments will now be made with the purpose of being "ranked" higher rather than a natural part of a conversation seems to negate the "social" in FaceBook's media. I just think Facebook needs to realize they are far from a startup and can no longer afford to keep shooting from the hip - instead they need to begin think twice. It is my belief they are trying to change the culture of Facebook at too fast a pace and that this is damaging their brand enormously.
Sandy Halliday 4:32 AM on November 15, 2012
Does this not now disrupt the flow of following a conversation? especially when introducing a way to move comments up (and extricably down) a conversation tree?
Karlo 9:00 AM on November 15, 2012
I dont know what to think about this. Having useless comments out of the way is pretty much good thing, but i dont think Facebook can really know which comments are useful and which arn't. Dunno...i like it more when they are shwon chronologically.
RJ Penn 9:35 PM on November 15, 2012
Nice post. I wonder when will this feature be available to all.
Stacy Stateham 11:42 AM on November 16, 2012
As much as it's nice to see that Facebook is offering up something for business pages other than paid promotion to help drive engagement, I tend to agree with the comments above that this will make following a conversation confusing. I see this potentially turning into a bit of a mess, personally.
Federico 9:41 AM on November 19, 2012
I noticed that this happened on my page but I do not like it at all, I agree with Karen. Most of the comments to our posts are part of conversations, this sorting is making a great confusion. Does anyone know how to set it back to the chronological order?
Laurie 10:31 AM on November 19, 2012
I agree with others that this makes conversations confusing. I've seen it in my news feed already and I really don't like it. I wish Facebook would make ranked view, whether in the news feed or in comments, an option that users can toggle between. Forcing EdgeRank and now ranked comments on users takes the fun out of the site for many people.
Erika Yigzaw 6:29 PM on November 19, 2012
I love crowd ranking on list.ly but I agree that on facebook it will reduce the "conversation" to be a single level - no one will be able to carry one a conversation via comments anymore... and that's kind of sad. After all, isn't the point to communicate - not just hear ourselves talk? IMHO Facebook is falling into the "trying to do everything" trap...
Cathy Watters 8:50 PM on November 19, 2012
I like Kane's idea of including some kind of numbering system for people who want to know the order. Or better yet, maybe include a button that allows users to choose rank vs chronological order when they visit a page a read it. Because I can definitely see this getting confusing in terms of following the conversation. I don't use Reddit, so I don't know how they avoid this issue.