Facebook confirms ‘structured test’ of ‘Top Posts’ filter

January 20, 2011 Bryan Person Trends No comments

The “Top Posts” filter on the Starbucks Wall that we caught wind of two weeks ago is no accident, Facebook has confirmed.

Here is the e-mail message that a member of the Facebook User Operations team sent to me, in response to my questions about the experiment (emphasis mine):

Facebook is always testing new features to create a better experience for Page owners and users. The ‘Top Posts’ filter is part of a structured test on several Pages to allow admins to surface the most engaging user-contributed Wall posts, but is not currently available for all Page admins. We will notify you if anything changes in the coming weeks.

The acknowledgement of a “structured test” between businesses and Facebook is important, because it gives us a peek into the social network’s exploration of how to improve the Page experience for both brands and fans. Of note:

In the current Pages setup, there’s no way for a brand/Page owner to highlight its own updates or key posts from fans. Instead, all posts are only displayed in reverse chronological order. This new, curated approach could deliver richer, more meaningful content atop the Facebook Wall, potentially generating even more engagement on the Page.
Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm already determines which content appears in the “Top News” News Feed. What if, in addition to Page admins’ manual selections, EdgeRank were also factored in when surfacing the best of “Top Posts”? (hat tip to Chad Wittman, who suggested the idea in a Facebook Group thread). This might highlight Wall posts from a user’s friends over other comments, for example.
There are no notifications for Page admins when new comments are posted to the Wall, making Facebook moderation a very manual task unless you use third-party tools or services. Could Facebook’s current tinkering with the admin controls also mean that a more robust notification/moderation console is on the way?

I floated the above scenarios to Facebook in a follow-up e-mail, but the team would not comment. This is a story we’ll keep watching.