A few members of the Digital Influence Group team break down key elements of the recent Facebook News Feed redesign, including the optimizations brands should be prepared to make in the near term to take advantage of the changes.
2. Overview of Updates: A New Look for News Feed
Facebook has recently announced the rollout of a redesigned news feed, aimed at reducing “clutter” and
focusing more on stories from the people and Pages users care most about. This change is primarily a visual
redesign; there will be no changes to Facebook’s algorithm and how they surface content:
Key features of update:
• Bigger Images: Photos, news articles, maps and events are more prominently highlighted
– According to Facebook, photos currently make up 50% of all news feed stories
• Mobile Consistency: This will serve as a unified user interface; the news feed will now have the same
look and feel on mobile, tablet and web.
• Multiple Feeds: The News Feed is now easier to filter – users will now have the option to sort beyond
just “most recent” and “top stories” – you can now sort by photos, music, pages and people you are
following, games, groups and your custom friend lists
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3. Impact for Brand Pages
These most recent updates offer several advantages for brand Pages and things to keep in
mind to best leverage the changes:
• High quality images and videos
are now more important than ever
– Photos will now appear even more
prominently in the news feed, so
brands will need to pay extra
attention to ensure that the images
they use are relevant, appealing and
engaging to followers.
• Users can more easily filter their
news feed
– An aggregated feed will be created
so users can quickly and easily
navigate to see every post from
pages they care about
• Cover photos are in the spotlight
– The Page cover photo is now the
image that will be displayed to
provide more context for both organic
and paid news feed stories
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4. Recommendations for Brands
The following should be considered as part of the ongoing Facebook Page strategy for brands:
Continue frequent updates of your
timeline cover photo so that it remains
consistent with desired brand messaging
in order to maximize engagement with
highlighted posts
As the new News Feed starts to roll out more broadly, focus on including more visual
content. The majority of posts on your Facebook page should contain a visual element
to take full advantage of the new image features
Consider posting more updates using images from
other brand resources/social channels and videos
from your branded YouTube page
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