Social media powerhouse Facebook
Most notably, Facebook will be removing the 'Like' feature in exchange for a focus on follower counts and audience engagement. One of the key attributes of the site that Facebook plans to remove is the 'Like' button. The reasoning behind this decision is that it does not seem as though the 'likes' represent a page's true sense of approval or lack thereof. Oftentimes, followers would only 'like' pages to appease their friends, and then later on, decline to receive updates from those pages.
Another characteristic that Facebook hopes to employ is the design of a brand new type of News Feed for various pages. Pages on Facebook are meant to determine a user's interests, but with this new feature, pages will be able to more readily engage with fans, and to gain popularity with other trending groups. The feature will be able to recommend other pages and public figures as well.
The last core feature that Facebook plans to launch is the Question and Answer format. It will aim to capture all the unanswered questions that fans have about the pages, and is largely inspired by the Instagram Question and Answer feature. It will allow users to become more acquainted with the content creators as well as to get to know the content on the pages itself.
Facebook's motivation behind all these new features is multi-faceted. It wants to remove all forms of bullying based on user likes or lack thereof. But it also wants to increase the chances that users will make more posts, since users are likely to feel less inhibited when their posts do not receive as many 'likes' as they would prefer. Since Facebook owns Instagram, these future changes will impact both companies in various ways.
"It's because we want people to worry a little bit less about how many likes they're getting on Instagram and spend a bit more time connecting with people they care about," said Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, at Facebook's F8 conference this past April. If the 'like' button were to be removed, Facebook would likely have more committed users, more posts, and an increased amount of tolerance to all types of people. Facebook seems to be headed in the right direction with this noted change, but it is to be determined if it will succeed or not.