Yesterday I wrote about how Facebook has begun suggesting your friends. One additional feature of this new system is when new friends register that may be connected to you, you receive an email notifying you that they have joined. This is a genius move by Facebook. One of the largest challenges in building a large social platform is people that register and never come back. This new system significantly increases the likelihood of return users.

Just yesterday I suggested that future media companies are going to need community managers to ensure that the community remains active and to build the community. This new feature by Facebook automates much of that process and ensures that most members won’t feel left out since it will automatically alert members to the new user’s registration.

I can’t speak for Facebook as to how significantly this new feature will reduce the creation of unused accounts but I’m sure it will have a significant impact. Unfortunately for most social networks, it is much more challenging to leverage this type of feature. Automatic friend referral requires a critical user base. In the short run, community managers are your best bet.