Facebook Now Reminds You To Vote, Launches I’m a Voter Feature and Boosts Ad Sizes

Elections in the biggest democracy in the world have commenced and you cannot be ignorant of this fact, especially if you are an active Facebook user residing in India.  Facebook has come up with a new “I’m a Voter” feature that will be flashed on top of the user’s news feed each time he/she logs into the account. It will constantly serve as a reminder to the just-started 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

By clicking the "I'm a Voter" button, they will be able to post a story to their Facebook timeline, sharing with friends that they are voting in this election.  However, the Election Day message and the voting button will be visible to the users only during the day of polls in their city.

This Facebook feature has been doing the rounds on mobile handsets as it has been designed accordingly. It appears on your profile when you are on the go, or browsing your account, and so on. This means that this concept has been taken very seriously by Facebook and it constantly pushes the user to exercise his right to vote.

The reason this voting feature can prove to be decisive in urging the youth to vote is because of its vast reach. This can be true considering the Indian users recently crossed the 100 million mark on Facebook.

According to digital media experts, the bulk of about 100 million first-time voters are active on social networking sites and are the main targets of parties seeking to widen their audience reach. This is the reason that no political party left any stone unturned in loosening their purse strings for spendings on social and digital media platforms.

Why this is a Great Initiative? 

This feature can prove to be helpful to users in a number of ways. The ignorant ones can stay aware and the ones who know would share it further via word of mouth. The youth can in fact take pride of the fact that they will be a part of the world's largest voting process and it is likely to encourage the laidback and careless sections of youth as well.

Facebook has taken commendable efforts in bringing an issue of national importance to the fingertips. It has done well in understanding the psyche of the smart phone generation and hence adopted an idea that can hardly go unnoticed. A lot about this path-breaking feature will be in the news soon as the election process reaches its climax and the entire buzz about this is expected to spread in a viral form as well.

Facebook’s Ad Size Boost

According to a recent update, Facebook has increased the size of its right column ads. This means that the number of Facebook ads would reduce but the ones that are shown would have a prominent image highlighted and is expected to create more engagement levels.

This has been tried during the testing of the new design. Facebook states that it will be offering the new ad product to the advertisers this month and will roll it across the board later this years.