Facebook Reply Option: Facebook To Add New 'Reply' Feature By July

On Monday, Facebook announced its intentions to add a “reply” button to its popular social network.

According to a report from CNN, the new feature will allow users to directly respond to comments left on their pages. Facebook has been testing the new messaging service since November, Mashable reports.

CNN notes that, rather than posting a belated response to an earlier comment at the very bottom of a discussion thread, users will be able to respond to each comment individually. The individual responses will appear directly below the corresponding comment.

Facebook will also prioritize your newsfeed in terms of interaction. In other words, the posts that have been frequently interacted with will be filtered to the top, while notes of lesser interest will be sent to the bottom. CNN notes that this additional aspect will especially be helpful to pages with large amounts of followers.

"You and your readers will have the ability to reply directly to comments left on your Page content and start conversation threads, which will make it easier for you to interact directly with individual readers and keep relevant conversations connected," blogged Vadim Lavrusik, Facebook’s journalism program manager.

"Also, the most active and engaging conversations among your readers will be surfaced at the top of your posts ensuring that people who visit your Page will see the best conversations."

For the time being, the new replying system will be for Facebook pages, rather than profiles. Users will be able to activate the system through the network’s Page admin panel. By July 10, Facebook plans to automatically apply the “reply button” to any page with more than 10,000 followers. Pages can also choose to disable the option.

"At launch, this feature will only be available on desktop and we plan to make it available in the Graph API and mobile in the future," added Lavrusik.