Many websites and online news outlets have capitalized on the free publishing space offered by Facebook. According to its information page, Facebook drives website traffic more than any other social media platform.
Free and open access to the online community will only increase with Tuesday's debut of its newest feature, "Stories to Share."
"Stories to Share" works by suggesting which stories websites should post through their Facebook account. Most of the time, suggestions will simply be pieces a publication hasn't already shared; however, the feature can also track the articles belonging to a website that are most frequently shared by other Facebook users, but haven't yet been offered by the website's own account, according to Tech Crunch.
Justin Osofsky, vice president of media partnerships and global operations at Facebook, explained the basics of the feature on Facebook's information page.
"For instance, TIME can see suggestions of stories they have published to TIME.com but they have not yet shared to their Facebook fans," he said.
Websites like Buzzfeed and Bleacher Report have seen huge increases in referral traffic after working directly with Facebook employees over the last few months. According to Facebook's page, Buzzfeed's referral traffic increased by 855 percent, Time's by 208 percent, and Bleacher Report by 1,081 percent.
During its work with online news sites, Facebook found the best practice for increasing referral traffic is to simply post more frequently.
The relationship between Facebook and news outlets is mutual, according a statement Osofsky gave Tech Crunch.
"When, people find Facebook more engaging, people spend more time on Facebook and see more ads, so one of our goals is to get people to use Facebook more," he said. "It's important to make Facebook more engaging first and foremost because it creates a great user experience, but that also help our business."
Stories to Share represents Facebook's attempt to become more of a news outlet and not just a domain for social exchange.
"Facebook can't survive without great content that pulls people back to the feed," wrote Tech Crunch staff writer Josh Constantine. "Luckily it has a massive traffic carrot it can use to tempt media sites to publish to it and talk about it."
Stories to Share will appear on the administrative panel of a company's Facebook page.