Facebook notifies you when someone posts a story for a few key reasons. Stories allow people to share photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours, so getting notifications helps you keep up with the ephemeral content from your friends in real-time. Understanding why you receive story notifications can help you manage your preferences.
What Are Facebook Stories?
Facebook Stories are photos and short videos that you or your friends post that are available for 24 hours. You can post them to your profile as part of the Facebook Stories feature, or within groups and on event pages. Stories appear in a bar at the top of the Facebook app and website.
When people you follow on Facebook post stories, you have the option to view them by tapping on their profile picture in the stories bar. Tapping on someone’s story allows you to view the content they have posted within the last 24 hours. You can react to stories with emojis and send messages in response.
Types of Story Notifications
There are several types of notifications you may receive from Facebook related to stories:
- New story posted – You receive a notification when someone you follow posts a new story.
- Story reply – You receive a notification when someone responds to your story.
- Story mention – You receive a notification when someone tags you in their story.
- Story reaction – You receive a notification when someone reacts to your story.
The notifications appear in the notifications tab of the Facebook app and website. You also may receive push notifications on your device when enabled in the notification settings.
Why Facebook Sends Story Notifications
There are a few main reasons why Facebook sends notifications for stories:
- Encourage Engagement – Notifications drive engagement as they inform people to view stories right away before they expire in 24 hours.
- Increase Interactions – Notifications make it easy for people to interact with stories by reacting and messaging.
- Keep You Updated – Notifications keep you updated on the latest content from people you follow in real-time.
- Provide Value – People value notifications as they want to stay current with stories from friends.
Overall, Facebook leverages notifications to facilitate connections, conversations and community around the ephemeral stories format. By notifying users of relevant activity, it increases the likelihood that people will interact with the content.
How to Manage Your Story Notifications
You have options for managing your story notifications based on your preferences:
Within Notification Settings
In the Notification tab:
– Toggle notifications on/off for ‘Story Posts’ to control notifications about new stories from people you follow.
– Toggle notifications on/off for ‘Story Replies’ to control notifications when someone replies to your story.
– Toggle notifications on/off for ‘Story Mentions’ to control notifications when someone tags you in a story.
– Toggle notifications on/off for ‘Story Reactions’ to control notifications for reactions to your story.
Within News Feed Preferences
In ‘News Feed Preferences’:
– Adjust stories to see ‘More’ or ‘Less’ in your News Feed.
– Unfollow people to stop seeing their stories.
Story Privacy Settings
Adjust your story privacy settings to control who can see your stories. Options include:
– Public: Anyone can see your stories.
– Friends: Only your friends can see your stories.
– Custom: Choose specific people to exclude or include.
Restricting your story audience will reduce the number of notifications you receive from non-followers interacting with your stories.
| Notification Type | What it Means | How to Manage |
|---|---|---|
| New Story Posted | Someone you follow shared a new story | Adjust story notifications or news feed preferences |
| Story Reply | Someone replied to your story | Toggle story reply notifications |
| Story Mention | Someone tagged you in their story | Toggle story mention notifications |
| Story Reaction | Someone reacted to your story | Toggle story reaction notifications |
Conclusion
Facebook sends notifications about stories in order to facilitate real-time connections and engagement around the ephemeral stories format. Notifications ensure you do not miss content from friends when they post stories. You can manage story notifications by adjusting settings for story posts, replies, mentions and reactions based on your preferences. Overall, notifications provide value by keeping people updated on the latest stories in their network.