This update, close on the heels of the release of Facebook Graph Search, demonstrates Facebook’s commitment to providing a better, more relevant way of organizing and accessing the wealth of information stored on Facebook.

A Personalized Newspaper

Facebook has realized with the vastly expanded social circles and more diverse array of information has limited the effectiveness of computer algorithms in determining the content the people find interesting. Now they are handing control back to the user to determine how they want their News Feed to appear. Users will have greater flexibility to control the content they want to appear in their News Feeds.  Like a newspaper, the News Feed will feature a prominent ‘front page’ divided into a variety of new sections. Featured, in a menu, will be the option to filter your feed to receive content only from specific sources. These options include: All Friends, Music, Photos, Games, Close Friends, Following and any of your Interest lists.


As you begin to filter your newsfeed by the aforementioned options, the menu order will change based on which sections you visit the most.

The ‘Following’ sub-segment of the News Feed is the most interesting for businesses as this where people will be able to access information from pages they are following; which is mainly business pages, celebrity pages, and news. The ability for the user to view just the news updates from pages they are following should give businesses more visibility.

Better Photos & Video

Since photos and video have become so integral to the Facebook experience, the News Feed has been redesigned to better showcase photos and images. More and more the content on Facebook is becoming more visually-based. Photos in the News Feed, including those from Instagram and Pinterest, are going to be given more prominent and larger positioning on the page and will also feature higher quality, vivid images to better mirror what has been shared on Pinterest.

Photos associated with Check-ins on Facebook will also get more exposure; an improvement that will benefit and underscore the importance of local business pages.

Consistent, Responsive Mobile Design

As social usage continues to surge on multiple devices – specifically tablets and smartphones, the mobile-friendly redesign of News Feed demonstrates the company’s major focus on improving the on-the-go user experience. Facebook has traditionally struggled with providing a consistent user experience between desktop and mobile devices; however, with this update, users can expect the same experience and same functionality regardless of the device used to access Facebook. The changes to the Facebook experience will be rolled out slowly over the next several weeks.

New Facebook News Feed Impact on Businesses

The newly designed News Feed should have some benefits for businesses. News Feed is typically the biggest source of traffic to business pages. Users will now have the option to browse specific pages to consume information from a variety of sources including the Following tab; which will feature news posts from pages followed by users; typically business, news and celebrity pages. The specific News Feed for followed pages should increase brand exposure and traffic within that specific filter. However, it will also place more importance on creating content that is engaging with the user to entice users to continue to engage with the following sub-segment of the News Feed. Failure to keep the users engaged will result in the limited use of the ‘Following’ sub-segment of the News Feed and will result in dramatically less visibility and consequently traffic to business pages.

With the better quality and highlighting of images, image quality will become more important to garnering user attention and generating traffic. This advent will favor business able to create professional, striking images able to better grab attention.

Additionally, with the segmentation of News Feed, sponsored stories may become more important and more targeted as people will be able to navigate to specific News Feeds based on any of their interests.

Will it Work?

Facebook has come under increasing scrutiny due to its inability to maintain engagement with users. A phenomenon known as “Facebook Fatigue” has been recently documented, citing that 61% of Facebook users have taken a hiatus from Facebook due to irrelevant content, boredom and other reasons.  Facebook Fatigue is a dangerous concept for a company under increasing pressure from Wall Street to bolster revenues.

The update to the News Feed is Facebook’s attempt to breathe new life into the Facebook experience and attempt to reinvigorate the experience, creating a more engaging, exciting experience. However, time will tell whether the revitalized News Feed will deliver results or fall flat, like so many Facebook initiatives before.


About the Author
Kyle joined Mediative about 5 ½ years ago and has been working as a Digital Marketing Strategist since that time; although his official title is Performance Media Manager. Kyle’s passion is Digital Marketing Strategies and Integrated Marketing Communications. Although an expert in online Paid Advertising, Kyle seeks to look at the whole picture and welcomes the opportunity to talk holistic Digital Marketing Strategies. Kyle has worked with some of Mediative’s largest Paid Search accounts; managing accounts in excess of 1 million keywords and a monthly spend of over $1 million. He is able to combine his skills in data analysis and marketing ability to develop highly targeted ad messaging and campaigns, aiming to not only access the correct target market, but to speak to them with the right language. Although, his largest accounts have been in the B2B e-commerce space, Kyle has also successfully managed lead generation and branding campaigns in both the B2C and B2B markets. During his tenure at Mediative, Kyle has gained in-depth experience on a multitude of Analytics and bid management platforms such as Google Analytics, CoreMetrics, Omniture, Marin Software and Acquisio.