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MARCH 22, 2024|SOCIAL MEDIA


Facebook Brought Back the "Poke" Button ... Here's Why So Many People Started Using It Again


Facebook Brought Back the Poke Button 900x600

About a decade ago in a Facebook post, Mark Zuckerberg once wrote "we thought it would be fun to make a feature that has no specific purpose." He was describing the much-ridiculed Facebook "Poke" button which was retired but now may be making a bit of a comeback. The thing people simultaneously loved and hated about it was that it was so hard to explain. What is a poke? Was getting one a good sign or not? And what should come after a poke to keep an online conversation going? 

Facebook Brought Back the "Poke" Button ... Here's Why So Many People Started Using It Again



No one ever really had a good answer. So why is the poke experiencing this resurgence? One article suggested that "by reimagining one of its classic social interactions that made it fun, Facebook aims to stay relevant and appealing to younger audiences, while reintroducing them to a slice of its heritage." Maybe that's true. Or maybe there's a subset of Facebook users who will simply click the button that is presented to them just to see what it does.

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This is a blog about non-obvious ideas. Originally launched on the Typepad platform in 2005 as the Influential Marketing blog, the stories at first focused mainly on digital marketing while Rohit worked at Ogilvy Advertising. In 2015 Rohit officially rebranded to the Non-Obvious Insights Blog and published his WSJ bestseller Non-Obvious. For the past twenty one years, this blog has coined new terms, introduced future marketing practices and inspired the next generation of non-obvious thinkers and marketers.

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