Your friends may untag unattractive photos on Facebook, but your brands probably won’t. As of Wednesday, Facebook enabled a photo-tagging feature for its Pages, allowing companies, brands, and celebrity figures to capitalize on this currently free and potentially viral advertising. At present, only Brand and products or People pages have earned the right to tag, but Facebook hopes to expand to other page categories in the future.
How it works is simple. If a product such as a can of Coke is in your picture, it could be tagged by Coca Cola and appear publicly on the Photos tab on Coca Cola’s official Facebook Page. Tagging is not limited to the photo’s owner or friends; anyone viewing the photo can tag a Page.
Like with most of Facebook’s changes, complaints and skepticism abound; however, companies will surely see the feature’s long-term benefits. Atlantic editor Nicholas Jackson writes, “It’s conceivable that, soon enough, you won’t need to tag the Pages in your photos, but that Facebook will do it for you, demanding that, once you’re photographed with an object, you’re forever associated with it. Coke would love that.” So, if you have any unflattering, but easily accessible pictures of you with a brand-name anything, untag yourself now, before Coke tags itself later. Read more from The Atlantic.
