A few months dorsum, reports circulated that sharing of personal posts on Facebook was on the decline - a significant trouble for a business that's largely built its revenue model on the back of personal data.

Co-ordinate to a written report published past The Information, overall sharing on Facebook fell 5.v% betwixt mid-2014 and mid-2015, while the sharing of personal posts - like people's own thoughts and photos - savage a massive 21% in the same period.

Since and then, Facebook'southward release a range of features and tools to get people sharing more often. You may have noticed an increment in "On This Day" reminders, for instance - those prompts, originally introduced in March 2015, accept proven to be a nifty mode to get people posting more personal updates, with more than than sixty million Facebook users visiting their personal "On This Solar day" page every twenty-four hour period (and 155 million opting to receive dedicated notifications for the characteristic).

They've also introduced new, Snapchat-like features, like disappearing updates, and their latest, SlideShow, which gathers your most recent photos and videos into a unmarried update.

Snapchat is where Facebook seems to believe those personal updates are being posted instead - those 10 billion videos posted via Snap every day take to be coming from somewhere.

Given the emphasis on promoting more personal sharing, information technology was likewise no surprise to see their latest News Feed algorithm update requite more than priority to updates from friends and family. Seeing more of these types of posts volition, ideally, increase the prospect of other users commenting and sharing more of their own, similar updates, helping Facebook'due south data drove become dorsum on runway.

And the next point of focus in the personal information push appears to be birthdays.

As per TechCrunch, Facebook's releasing a new feature which will amalgamate all your birthday messages from friends into an auto-generated video clip.

"Every bit long every bit you listing your altogether in you contour and receive at to the lowest degree three wall posts or tags in posts on your birthday, the next day you'll receive one of these recap videos."

After you've watched your video, yous can edit information technology, replacing the photos or posts, and so (of course) share it with friends.

And while it may seem a chip inexpensive and cheesy to some, at that place is solid logic behind why Facebook would desire to button altogether letters, and their menses-on issue to increased personal sharing.

According to a study conducted by The Association for Computing Mechanism on the development of Facebook interaction, a altogether greeting is one of the key ways people connect on the platform.

"We found that over 39% of [people'due south] start wall posts independent either "birthday" or "bday", suggesting that these wall posts are birthday letters. In fact, wall posts related to birthday greetings are fifty-fifty more than prevalent if we consider wall posts other than the first: 54% of the user pairs in the low-charge per unit interaction group exchanged at least one wall mail service related to birthday wishes.

In other words, a significant amount of personal interactions, peculiarly betwixt people who don't communicate frequently, happen because of birthdays. That's likely what Facebook's trying to tap into here - if they can prompt more than users to generate engagement and give-and-take on the dorsum of those initial connections, that could increase the amount of personal sharing.

And as per The Ringer, there are already more than 100 meg birthday related updates on Facebook every day.

"These new bells and whistles-  and the arguably more than aggressive notifications-  [volition] surely drive more posting and pictures, something Facebook absolutely needs."

Facebook Adds New Birthday Video Tool to Prompt More Personal Sharing | Social Media TodayIn a broader sense, Facebook's emphasis on personal updates doesn't necessarily bode well for Pages.

As noted, the latest News Feed algorithm shift to emphasize more personal updates is probable a step in this direction - which makes sense, Facebook needs people sharing more personal updates in order to fuel both their algorithm (to boost engagement) and their advertising products (for targeting). Just as The Social Network puts more emphasis on this element, information technology also, conversely, reduces the reach and shares of brand content.

Facebook needs to maintain a balance on this, of course, but Folio managers will need to keep a close eye on their metrics and ensure they're working to develop stronger ties within their Facebook communities (through shares and comments) in society to keep a hold on the attention they do take as Facebook looks to put more focus on these personal interactive elements.