Facebook is bringing back one of its earliest hero features, the poke. The response from GenZ on this feature is a great sign to grow the platform’s engagement.
Facebook has been working on improving engagement on its platform through various means. To regain engagement traction, the tech giant has resurfaced the Poke feature. Poke was one of the earliest features Meta introduced, which allowed users to poke their friends and acquaintances. But it silently disappeared from the limelight and users' profiles without any official reason.
However, the feature was not completely removed from the platform. Poking fell out of fame after it dropped in engagement back in 2014-15. Users felt that the feature was either too flirty or creepy and that there were better ways to communicate than to just annoy people with pokes.
The unique way of hiding the poke feature somehow kept the button alive, with only those who looked deep enough being able to find it. Till now, users had to search for either ‘Poke’ or ‘Poking’ to get to the Poke feature page. Meta said it made a subtle tweak in the early months of 2024 and got an overwhelming response from the younger audience set.
Meta also said that as soon as it made the design tweaks, it witnessed a 13% surge in GenZ engagement. The tech giant has denied sharing stats on the daily poke button usage. The poke button has resurfaced next to Facebook users' profiles, and anyone can poke anyone with just a tap.
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Every time a user pokes another, they get a notification regarding the same. It can be a great way to restart conversations with older friends or someone with whom the touch was lost. Younger minds aged 18-24 like the feature too much and feel that though it is a cheeky method, it is also easier to curb conversation-starter anxiety. Considering the dropping preference for Facebook as the primary social media app, bringing back this feature may help regain audience time spent on the app.
