Today, Facebook rolled out the new Facebook news feed. It’s big, it’s bold, and it’s beautiful – AND it should really help you get a grasp on updates in your news feed.
For anyone who has used the old Facebook news feed, you’ll know how difficult it can be to navigate. A lot of times, you miss out on important updates because it either gets buried in your news feed or because it gets lost between posts you are not interested in. Today, things change…for the better with the new Facebook news feed.
In today’s announcement, I heard words like visual, engaging, choice, and consistency. After seeing the new Facebook news feed, those words ring true. Facebook looks amazing no matter which type of device you’re on – a desktop, tablet or smartphone.
So what all has changed in the new Facebook news feed? Here’s a rundown.
About the new Facebook news feed
Mobile
For anyone who has used Facebook on a desktop and then switched to a tablet or smartphone, you know how frustrating it can be having to learn what works and what doesn’t on Facebook depending on which device you’re using. For instance, some devices did not allow tagging users in posts until recently. Today, Facebook showed off a new design – with one caveat. It works the same across a desktop, a tablet or a smartphone (finally)!
This means you won’t have to keep a checklist of what works on the device you’re using. Instead, you can move from a mobile device to a desktop or vice versa and the experience stays the same!
Big, visual, appealing
One thing you will notice about the new Facebook news feed is that Facebook has given it a makeover. Images and videos are now much larger so that they help capture friends and fans attention. The same holds true for content that is shared from third-party sites like Pinterest and Instagram. It is now displayed more prominently instead of being relegated dark parts of your news feed.
Streamlined
To make room for the news, bigger (and more appealing) news feed, Facebook has gotten rid of the menu on the left. No, they didn’t delete it entirely. Instead, features you access the most are displayed in a vertical column – a la Hootsuite. They have also thinned it out so that they could make more room for the news feed and your larger content.
Multiple news feeds
Besides the new mobile-friendly user experience, larger photos, and streamlined appearance, the biggest change is that you now have multiple news feeds. While news feeds still rely on Facebook Edgerank to determine placement, at least you now have a choice on what you want to see.
Here are the types of news feeds in the new Facebook news feed:
- All friends – a list of all updates from friends, sorted in chronological order
- Following – these are Facebook Pages that you have liked and public figures you follow. The new news feed shows all updates and sorts them in chronological order too.
- Most recent – the newest updates (sorted chronologically)
- Photos – a separate news feed for just photo updates (it’s about time)!
- Music – updates from music apps like Spotify
- Games – updates from games you’re playing or your friends are playing. Now, no more needing to hide these!
- Add Interest lists – if you have created an Add interest list, these will show in your news feed section now
Note: The list of news feeds is sorted based on which ones you use most often.
If you want to manage Facebook Pages and blogs in one account, consider creating a Facebook news feed organizer to bring everything together.
How the new Facebook news feed impacts Facebook Profiles
With all of these changes to the news feed, this should bring a lot of people back from the edge who were close to shutting down their Facebook account – like that would really happen. Now, users seems to have more control. Not to mention, you can easily filter out all of those pesky game notifications you’re not interested in.
One other thing I really like about the new news feed is the emphasis on check in to places on Facebook and adding friends. The new news feed now shows a larger image of places you or your friends check in. This helps you learn more about those places and encourages you to stay connected with that friend who happens to have checked in.
Adding new friends has also gotten a makeover. Previously, you had to click off to a users profile. Now, when you hover over their profile, their cover photo is much larger and you can see who they’re friends with. This helps make the experience more frictionless.
How the new Facebook news feed impacts Facebook Pages
While you now have a news feed to see just updates from your friends, one big change is the addition of a “following” news feed. The “following” news feed will show just pages you have liked, along with public figures you are following. They are also sorted in chronological order. This means no more having to see updates from the same pages over and over. You can see them all – and in one place!
This is good for businesses because with the emphasis on photos, this means it’s time to start creating content that is compelling to fans. This means it’s VERY important to have an optimally sized profile photo and timeline cover photo (get the Facebook Page dimensions here). This also means it’s time to stop posting images with quotes and Internet memes that are totally unrelated to your business just so that you can influence the number of likes your content gets and “cheat” the news feed and Facebook Edgerank.
This also means that because users have a choice in what they want to see, instead of trying to get your numbers up by posting unrelated content to your business, Facebook Pages and marketers will need to return to their roots if they want to be successful by focusing on core products and their brand so that they can add value for customers.
With the new news feed now showing chronological updates from Facebook Pages, if users have the choice to clean-up their news feed, which pages do you think they will remove first? Definitely the ones who are not adding value to the conversation.
Closing thoughts on news feed and unanswered questions
I’m really looking forward to Facebook’s redesign. Yes, it will take some getting used to, but I like the direction they are headed, especially with their emphasis on a mobile first approach.
At the time of writing this, there were still a lot of questions to be answered about Facebook Ads and the role they will play in news feed. I’m certain you’ll see them in your news feed at some point. With the changes to the news feed, and Facebook users coming back to the site because of its newfound “stickiness,” I don’t see Facebook removing ads anytime soon. There are just too many opportunities to make money from them.
How to get the revamped new Facebook news feed
Just like past updates to Facebook, they plan on rolling out the news Facebook news feed incrementally. Here’s how they plan to roll out the new Facebook news feed: desktop, tablet/smartphone. They are starting with the desktop so that they can ensure users have a great first experience.
To get the revamped new Facebook news feed, join the waiting list.
If you’re interested in learning about what went into the new Facebook news feed, Facebook has an excellent video on the process.
Question: How do you feel about the new Facebook news feed? Go ahead and send me a tweet and sound-off. Do you like it? Do you hate it? Now is your chance to have be heard.