Facebook to now alert users of new movie releases

Facebook users can opt in to get reminder alerts for new movies. These alerts will come on the user’s Facebook notifications.

Facebook introduces new feature for movie buffs. (AP)

Aiming to help movie studios promote their latest releases, social networking giant Facebook is launching two new ad units named movie reminder ads and movie showtime ads.

Moviegoers often discover a film months before its release but they often need reminders when a film they care is about to hit theatres.

With movie reminder ads, when people see an ad for a film in their News Feed, they can now tap on the 'Interested' button to receive a reminder in their Facebook notifications when the movie hits theatres.

"The notification sends people to the movie detail page on Facebook to look up showtimes and seamlessly purchase tickets," Facebook said in a statement on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, movie showtime ads for films are already in theatres.

"We're also introducing movie showtime ads for films that are already in theatres. Previously, researching showtimes required extra steps and additional searches. Now, when a moviegoer comes across a movie showtime ad, they can tap a 'Get Showtimes' button to go right to the Facebook movie detail page to find out where and when to see the film," the social networking giant said.

Both the new ad units are currently available for all film studios in the US and the UK.