Meta Platforms will start letting more users create multiple profiles with their Facebook accounts, the company's latest attempt to encourage posting and sharing on its social network.
As part of a test, certain Facebook members will be able to
create as many as four additional profiles, and each one won't need to include
a person's real name or identity. Users could have one for friends and another
for co-workers, for example, each with its own feed. But they will only be able
to comment or like another post with one profile.
Meta is stepping up efforts to drive engagement on the
world's biggest social network, which has seen growth slow — especially among
younger users. Facebook has previously offered multiple profiles but in a more
limited fashion. Public figures, for example, have been able to manage multiple
profiles for years, and the company has also let users create different
identities for dating or college.
Additional profiles are still required to adhere to
Facebook's content policies and will tie back to a user's core account, meaning
rule violations on one profile will affect the others, the company said.
When launching student profiles in 2020, Meta executives
said that users were looking to interact around interests that were more
specific than the things they might find with their main social experience.
With multiple profiles, Facebook hopes users will create separate identies for
their different interests, like gaming, travel or food, according to the
spokesperson.
The test won't change how Meta calculates its monthly or
daily active user totals, which are reported during earnings. The
multiple-profile effort is just a test for now, and includes some of the US
users and those in a handful of other countries.