Facebook News Feed to lose clutter – giving users more control over newsfeeds

Facebook has announced some big changes that will do away with the clutter across your newsfeed. These changes are primarily to the design and functionality of its newsfeed.

These changes include Rich Stories which display photos and visual content much more prominently and clearly, Choice of Feeds that gives users more control over the topics of stories they see and better Mobile Consistency, making your experience with Facebook much more seamless across desktop and mobile.

Let’s take a look at exactly what Facebook has changed and what it means for those of you who promote through Facebook:

Rich Stories

Around 50% of the News Feeds content is photos and visual content. Because of this the new design focuses on making each story shared in the Newsfeed much more vibrant to better highlight the content that is being shared.

This means photos, news articles, maps and events will now be brighter, bigger and more prominent on the page.

Here is what we can expect:

1. Photos

Photos will be more “front and centre” and the photo albums have been updated to give a better story.

2. Articles

Articles shared feature bigger images, a more prominent title and a longer article summary.

3. Stories

Stories shared, will pull in elements of that persons or businesses timeline, such as their cover photo.

4. Maps

Places are more prominent within maps.

5. Videos

Video content will now be displayed much bigger.

6. Popular content

There is now better aggregation of popular content shared and what people are commenting on these stories.

What you need to do on your business page:

1. Your content needs to be more compelling

With the new changes to Facebook it is much easier for users to tune out content from businesses. Because of this, you need to give your fans even more of an incentive to check out your business page so they view your content, allowing them to engage with likes, comments and shares which will in turn enable you to show up in their friends All Friends Feed.

It is now more important than ever to post more compelling and sharable content. Don’t overdo the self-promoting as you don’t want to annoy your followers.

2. Focus more on Visual Content

Facebook features visual content like images and videos more prominently on the newsfeed, which means it is more relevant to share great visual content. This could be anything from pictures of unique interior design you may come across to beautiful pictures of the local area and community.

Also, now that cover photos are getting pulled onto the newsfeed it is important that your cover photo is eye-catching and visually relevant to your page so it provides more context and captures the attention of Facebook users.