BANGOR, Maine — Almost all of us use social media to share photos with friends and family.
But over the last few years, social media has gone from just social to also a news gathering site. Facebook's marketing team has been researching exactly what its users want to see more and less of.
What they found, was that people wanted to see more community news, especially community news that affects them directly or if there's a need for them to take action.
An example is if there's a water main break and people need to boil water in a specific area, Facebook users want to know right away.
Which is why Facebook has started "local alerts," which gives cities, fire and police departments all over the country the opportunity to alert the people in their area. These alerts will show up right in your notification center.
Bangor is one of the first cities in the country to have this access and the first city in Maine.
City officials say it's already working.
"I used it for the first time last week on a parking ban," said Zeth Lundy, public information coordinator for the city of Bangor. "And it's crazy, I had posted about a parking ban earlier in the week and it got shared maybe twice, got a couple people that liked it, that kind of thing. Then I posted this one as a local alert and right off the bat it got shared 20 times, it was liked and commented on a lot more than it had before."
Facebook Marketing Manager Jimmy O'Keefe says the local alert program is meant to be used for the "everyday emergency," but they have seen it used in more severe situations.
"It was used during hurricane Florence by some partners in North Carolina as well as during the California wildfires," he said.