1 Jul 2013 Keeping Up With Facebook Business
Facebook loves to tinker with its site on a fairly regular basis. Some users seem to have a real problem with the changes made, no matter what they are, while others revel in the increased usefulness of various features. The powers that be at Facebook are at it again with more changes to the News Feed and other features on the site, once again altering everyone’s experience of the most popular social website on the Internet.
First, the changes to the News Feed are revolutionary to say the least. Facebook says the redesign of the News Feed has been inspired by the design layout of the mobile versions of the site, such as the one you might find on your smartphone. The idea behind the redesign is to make the News Feed feel much less cluttered while being easier to use. Now users can filter what shows up, such as choosing to have post appear with the most recent first to a setting that shows all friends’ activity. This means that users no longer need to worry about missing out on posts from friends, which was a common complaint. The new feed layout even shows friend activities such as what music they have listened to on connected music sites or apps and what events they plan on attending.
Significant to businesses on Facebook, when a person likes a page there is a post on the News Feed that shows the page’s icon and wallpaper, giving free advertising to that person’s friends. Businesses should also be interested to know that the redesign increases ad slots to ten, up from the previous seven. Even more revolutionary is the fact that the images used in ads on the site will be significantly larger, instead of the tiny photos that were featured on the right sidebar before. With larger photos in the ads user engagement will likely increase, meaning businesses will see more value in advertising on the site. Users can also pull up a feed of all of the pages that they like on the site, giving them the ability to see what’s going on with the various companies, celebrities and other organizations they like.
Photos are also getting the royal treatment in the News Feed redesign on Facebook. According to the site about half of all updates contain photos, meaning they are an incredibly important aspect of the site. Instead of small thumbnails that used to appear on the feed, users now see their friends’ and liked pages’ photos in a much larger format, giving beautiful photos the attention they deserve. There is also a photos feed that will display just photos from friends and pages if Facebook users want to have a purely visual experience on the site.
Groups on the site, which have received little attention in previous redesigns, are also to be featured in their own special feed. This means user engagement in the groups they have joined is likely to rise since they can see updates from these groups without the clutter from friends, pages and embedded advertisements.
Ian Bridges is a social media marketer. He loves to write about the latest happenings online for small business blogs. For internet services in your area, visit the website info link to learn more.