Facebook: How "See First" Further Refines

Summary

• FB recently began testing a News Feed feature called "See First" that allows users to set preferences on visibility.
• This is a third News Feed option that will run in parallel with Friend/Unfriend and Follow/Unfollow.
• FB is working to further refine the News Feed to make it more attractive to users but also to gather deeper analytics about users and what is important to them.
• Again, this is another step along the path to FB optimizing its Facebook platform for advertising and content marketing.

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) is further dialing-in its all-important News Feed only this time the refining will be done by you instead of an algorithm. That's right. This time it will be done by the user.
A new button was spotted today by a group of select users, as first reported by techcrunch.com, which offers the opportunity to prioritize the News Feed on a person by person or business by business basis. This button, See First, is Facebook's latest testing of yet another method of collecting data that it will use to make more attractive its pitch to advertisers.
Here's why this is important.
As I've detailed in prior articles Facebook is well-known for testing forward looking initiatives in small sizes, even if at a complete loss - as was the case with Poke and Paper, but always the testing is a means to an end for something much larger. Poke eventually led to Messenger and the purchase of Whatsapp while Paper was the predecessor to Instant Articles.
See First, in my opinion, is a testing that will have several "means to an end" that will benefit Facebook.
The first is it will help Facebook determine how restrictive to make its News Feed algorithm in regards to showing you what I call un-recognized content - items like meme's and other non-friend generated content, content that is shared or liked or commented but not actually generated by the organic friend tree. Facebook has been fairly transparent with its algorithm changes lately in evidencing that it wants to cap this type of material before it ruins the experience of the platform. Facebook is no stranger to viral content farmers and viral content aggregators and knows the level of annoyance for users these can create.
The second is that in helping its algorithm determine each user's tolerable level of un-recognized content - because you're not going to follow somebody who constantly posts this type of content without enjoying what you're seeing in your News Feed, See First will also identify key influencers in your News Feed. In that, and this is brilliant, I believe Facebook will also be able to identify how to better advertise to the "downchain" News Feed. Meaning the News Feed of the influencer. Meaning me if I'm electing to See First this friend.
Imagine a scenario where I'm following, and electing to See First, say a fitness enthusiast friend who is also constantly promoting (paid or unpaid) a particular protein shake brand. Does it stand to be more effective for Facebook to advertise this brand in my News Feed or to auction off the rights to a competitor? I think that this is the next natural step for Facebook to test - to see if at scale the preferred outcomes generated are at higher levels of efficacy based on the data gathered from See First. Of course, this is something Facebook will do.
If so, See First is going to be huge.
If not, well at least Facebook got to dial-in its algorithm.
My guess is that Facebook does in fact show a greater efficacy level in driving preferred outcomes based on what is already known about advertising in general. That word of mouth is the single most influential driver to a purchase decision.
This is why Instagram has a purpose in the Facebook, Inc. ecosystem greater than simply facilitating entertainment. People taking photos of themselves are in essence visual endorsements of product - often included are hashtags helping identify brands. This is a subject discussed in detail in the linked article so I won't further elaborate.
The point to be made here is that Facebook has taken incredible strides the last 30 days or so in making visible the ways that its advertising pitch is being refined. If you don't think that Madison Avenue is taking notice, if you don't think that companies and brands are taking notice, I'm betting being long the stock that you're wrong.
In any case, I think this is another incremental move forward of the long term bull case.
I continue to recommend a long position Facebook.
Good luck everybody.