Facebook Celebrates #FriendsDay (You Should Too)

Allison Howen
by Allison Howen 04 Feb, 2016

As pointed out in Website Magazine's "Big List of Social Media Holidays" infographic, every day is a holiday on the Internet. February 4th, for example, has been named "Friends Day" by the world's largest social network.

Although February 4th is actually Facebook's 12th birthday, the social network has decided it wants to recognize the day as Friends Day to highlight the importance of connecting rather than celebrate itself. What's more, the social network is unveiling some new data on degrees of separation as well as new products to further encourage its members to celebrate their connections.

"When people connect, powerful things happen and lives are changed. We see this on Facebook every day, whether it's an exchange with an old friend that brings a smile to your face or a new connection that changes your life path, or even the world," Facebook said in its announcement.

For starters, Facebook announced that as its community has grown, the degrees of separation between a typical pair of Facebook users has decreased to 3.57 degrees, which is down from 3.74 degrees five years ago. This stat shows how connected the world has become, and goes to show the reach social networks have.

To help its users celebrate Friends Day, Facebook announced that it is also delivering a personalized Friends Day video to millions of its users. The videos, which are similar to the social network's end-of-year review videos, stitch together moments between friends that can be edited and shared. In addition, Facebook has unveiled two new sticker packs called "Best Friends" and "Friendship," which can be downloaded for free in the Sticker Store.

Although brand Pages won't have access to Facebook's Friends video, they can still participate in the holiday (and improve the reach of their posts) by leveraging the #friendsday hashtag, just like the Detroit Lions did in the image below.