Celebrities always get the VIP treatment, and now they can get it on Facebook, too. On Thursday, the company launched Facebook Mentions, an app that’s currently only available to verified pages in the U.S.
That means, if you’re not a celebrity or “influencer,” you can’t use it.
The new app encourages famous people to post more photos, videos and live Q&As to engage with fans. The news feed on Mentions will let celebrities toggle between “Following” and “Trending” posts, and celebs are encouraged to add commentary about trending topics on Facebook.
The biggest difference, and the namesake of the app, is a “Mentions” tab, similar to the one Twitter has. Now verified page users can see what people are saying about them, and reply if they want. Sound familiar? It’s just the latest in a slew of updates that Facebook has copied from Twitter.
A Facebook spokesperson told me that celebrities using Mentions post twice as much as they did before. It’s likely you’ve seen at least one post created on the app—the now infamous video of Tyrese bragging about the $3 billion Apple-Beats deal with Dr. Dre was reportedly created with the new app.
You can download the app today, but it’s unusable, unless you’ve got a verified page. The company said it plans on rolling it out to more countries and to people with verified profiles in the coming months.
Images courtesy of Facebook.
