Facebook is still testing ways to let users prioritize particular friends and pages in their news feed – something that could be good news for all the pages out there that continue to suffer from reach issues.

TechCrunch spotted a new test feature called ‘See First’ which allows users to designate certain people and pages to “see first” on top of their news feed.

Users would be able to select one of three news feed visibility options for friends and pages – unfollow, default, or See First. If See First is selected, that person or page’s new content will always appear at the top of your news feed.

Facebook gave this statement:

“We are always exploring new ways to improve the Facebook experience, and are currently running a small test of a feature that lets you indicate that you’d like to see posts from a specific person or Page at the top of your News Feed.”

This new test is just a tweak on another test Facebook ran back in April. A few months ago, the company prompted users atop their news feeds to “pick friends and pages and see their posts at the top of News Feed.” Facebook advertised it as a way to “see more of what you love.”

Of course, we talked about how this could be very, very good for pages:

Facebook can’t show you everything from every friend and page you follow. Anyone with a page knows how Facebook’s organic reach has plummeted over the past year or so. Facebook says that it does not filter posts from friends, however, and all you have to do to see every single thing every single friend posts is to scroll down far enough.

 

Of course, that’s not really feasible. Facebook’s algorithms, which weigh the importance of posts on a variety of factors, should take into account how close you are to said person (through interactions) when sorting your News Feed.

 

But this would be one surefire way to tell Facebook that you never, under any circumstances, want to miss a post by a specific person or page.

 

Facebook already does something like this for friends. You can still add friends to a “close friends” list, “to see more of them in your News Feed and get notified each time they post.” The notifications are optional.

 

But this could be really good news for pages, who continue to suffer with visibility. Recently, Facebook announced a tweak to News Feed that would show users more content from friends, and even less from pages.

 

But if Facebook allows people to designate pages whose content they under no circumstances want to miss, it could help those pages, at least in theory, get more reach.

Facebook appears to be testing multiple ways to give user more control over their news feed. If Facebook does indeed roll this feature out wide, pages will need to make sure their content is awesome enough that people will want to designate it at “See First”.