Jul 18, 2014 12:42 PM EDT By J Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

Facebook has launched a new iOS app on Thursday for celebrities and businesses with verified pages.

The app, called "Mentions," can only be accessed by actors, athletes, musicians and other influencers with verified accounts.  It aims to help Facebook-recognized or verified celebrities manage their public figure pages, and will let them see a "somewhat Twitter-like stream of posits that reference them," The Verge reported.  

"Nearly 800 million people are connected to public figures on Facebook, and interacting with athletes, musicians, actors and other influencers is an important part of their experience," Facebook officials said in a statement. "We want to make these interactions even better."

With the app, public figures will be able to see what fans are saying about them and host mobile Q&A's with fans. They will also get streamlined notifications about their posts, including mentions from other public figures or the media.

"High profile members are key to the success of both Facebook and Twitter, and this tool actually makes a lot of sense in terms of helping those growth-generators become more involved with the platform," TechCrunch pointed out.

 The social media giant lists celebrities, journalists, government officials and popular brands and businesses as pages they look to verify. Page administrators should link up their pages to an official website to speed up the verification process.

Administrators of verified pages can request access to the elite app simply by downloading the app and then logging in.

Mentions is currently only available for people with verified Pages in the United States. Facebook plans to roll out to more countries and verified Profiles in the coming months.

Public figures can request access to Mentions here. 

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