Introducing Birthday Stories from Facebook — including free doughnuts

Facebook wants to help you celebrate your birthday and the special birthdays of your loved ones in more creative, meaningful ways.

Over time, Facebook’s platform has become synonymous with sharing special life milestones, more specifically birthdays. How many times do you log on to your profile, receive the prompt from Facebook that one of your friends is enjoying the spoils of another trip around the sun and think: “Wow. I’m sure glad Facebook reminded me because I had no clue!”

Beginning today, you can celebrate your friend in an even more memorable way. Introducing: Birthday Stories from Facebook. After doing some intensive research and test trials, Facebook discovered that over 100 million people use Facebook Stories to share “everyday moments.” Realizing the impact audio-visual content has on its members, Facebook wanted to find a way to offer a more creative, authentic way for friends to connect and recognize one another’s birthdays.

Going forward, users will have the ability to contribute to a friend’s “birthday story” by adding their own digital birthday cards, photos, videos or other creative content and Facebook will deliver all contributors’ content to the birthday guy or girl in the form of a “Birthday Story.”

It’s very easy to participate.

You can access the feature in one of three places: your Facebook home screen along the top, on Facebook’s daily birthday reminder page or on the person’s individual wall. Participants will have access to special filters, stickers and recording features to make their contribution to a birthday story even more special.

This feature is particularly unique because the content will only be available for 24 hours (keeping in tradition with regular story content), and the person celebrating has complete control over their own birthday story. The birthday person can manage visual controls, meaning they can limit who can contribute to their birthday story, as well as select the “approve story” option giving them complete editorial control over what is visible to their followers.

Erin Brown Hollis covers faith and culture for Yellowhammer News. She is an author and host of the “Cheers to That!” podcast. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @erinbrownhollis.