ShareThis Debuts 'Social A/B' Facebook Headline Test

In the US, social media data platform ShareThis has launched a feature called Social A/B for Facebook's Instant Articles, to enable publishers to test multiple headlines with their social media audiences.

Palo Alto, CA-based ShareThis develops consumer engagement and sharing tools to drive engagement, traffic and personalization, while capturing sentiments to provide a holistic view of consumers. Its new feature has been designed for use with Facebook's Instant Articles solution, through which publishers can create interactive articles that are viewed directly in Facebook's mobile app.

Editors can use Social A/B to create multiple headline options and then test each with the publisher's Facebook audience to see which is more appealing, clickable and sharable. ShareThis then automatically selects and publishes the headline that is driving the most clicks and shares. According to Matt Harvey, USA TODAY's Senior Product Director, the feature drives up to 150% more engagement on popular content.

Paul Lentz, SVP Publisher & Business Operations, comments: 'We are excited to be extending our social media sharing platform into the realm of headline testing with Facebook Instant Articles. Our publishers have been telling us they need new ways to leverage their social (media) audience, so extending A/B headline testing off their site and onto social networks was a logical next step for our publisher products'.

Web site: www.sharethis.com .