Los Angeles — Internet’s favorite social media network Facebook on Wednesday, announced a new photo-tagging feature that empowers users identify people or objects that have their own Facebook Pages, this will certainly make brands and celebs happy.
Unlike before, beginning today, in addition to being able to tag your friends in photos, you can also tag photos with a brand, product, company or person’s Facebook pages that you currently “Like”. Previously, only friends were entitled to be tagged and linked to within photos.
Moreover, the feature is currently limited to Pages that can be tagged are Brands & Products or People pages, though Facebook says they are “looking to expand this functionality to more page categories over time.”
Brands should rejoice as this is a terrific way for them to gain recognition and users, as their feed activity will now be heightened by a proliferation of the millions of personal photos potentially. But, the most unpleasant byproduct possibility is that the trail of tagging activity in people’s feeds could be overkill.
For instance, if you have recently uploaded a photo of yourself holding a can of Coke (see image below), you can now label the Coke can with a tag that links to Coke’s official Facebook Page.
If it catches on, this new feature could be great for brands vying to virally spread awareness about their products. It could also be a big opportunity for the social media network Facebook to monetize the site’s popular photo service.
Furthermore, Facebook explained that a Page can be tagged anywhere that someone can view a photo in the photo viewer. These photos will be displayed on the Photos tab on the Page, and not on the Wall and a Page can be tagged by anyone on Facebook, not just people who have Liked a Page.
As usual, Facebook is informing us that privacy features are still in place, and that just because you tag a photo of a Coke with the Coke brand page, it does not suggest that your photo has to appear on that brand’s page- unless of course you want it to.
In addition, commenting on possible privacy concerns, Facebook warns that public photo will “appear publicly on the Photos tab of the Page,” while pictures shared just with friends will only be accessible to friends.
The privacy of the photo is always respected when a Page is tagged in a photo. If a photo post is published to “everyone,” then it can appear publicly on the Photos tab of the Page and the Page admins can see it. If it is just published for someone’s friends, only their friends will be able to see that photo. Page Admins can always choose to disable tagged photos from appearing on the Photos tab by going into Edit Page > Posting Options > and unchecking “Users can add photos“.
Nevertheless, this will obviously promote more interaction with brands on Facebook as well as celebrities’ fan pages. Just think how many times people upload a picture of someone holding a Starbucks coffee or upload a pic from a certain restaurant or sporting venue? If users have a picture with Kanye West and a bunch of their friends, for instance, they can tag him along with all their friends.
Interestingly, since 2009, users have been authorized to tag pages in their status updates and wall posts. This latest move just takes that to a whole new level.