Last September, Facebook introduced the Subscribe button, which allows you to share updates with a wider audience. Now it appears the social network is testing it with Pages.

Currently members can subscribe to Profiles of prominent figures and celebrities, regardless of a mutual friendship. Subscribers are only able to access and interact with public updates.

The company has confirmed that it’s testing the ability to subscribe to Pages with a small group. This would allow people to receive updates from you without Liking your Page first. The idea behind this is that people can keep tabs on a Page without publicly announcing support.

This creates a pain point for businesses that rely on Facebook Likes as part of their marketing plans. While the number of subscribers creates a new metric to track, those people won’t be counted in Likes.

However, the upside to this is that it could make it easier to keep an eye on competitors. You can discretely track updates without exposing yourself. An earlier study found that eight out of 10 companies use social media to monitor their competitors.

At this time it isn’t clear which Pages are participating in this test, or when Facebook will roll out the feature to more Pages.

[Via: AllFacebook, Image credit: Scott Beale]