We know, a slew of announcements were made at F8 today, and we can’t wait to provide insight on what it all means. We’re digesting all we can about the changes, and are rapidly analyzing what these changes will mean for you. Since F8 is a developer conference, most of the key learnings right now are key to users & developers. We’ll continue to learn as much as we can, and report back with updates soon!
In the meantime, tons of changes were made to the News Feed yesterday, and we’re dying to go through it all with you. So read on and get the low-down on what these most recent News Feed changes mean for you.
1. Top News and Most Recent Posts now together in one News Feed
Important for brands: Brand Posts can still appear in Top Stories, based on Edge Rank, and users will not need to navigate between Top Stories and Most Recent activity to see a highly-engaging Post.
The low-down: For the last two years, Facebook has given its users the option to sort between “Top Posts,” which compiled activity Facebook deemed to be most important to a user, and “Most Recent,” which displayed activity in real-time. With the most recent News Feed update, the two sections have now been merged, displaying both recent activity and important stories together in the same feed. The amount of space devoted to top stories versus recent activity is determined by the amount of time a user spends logged into Facebook. The longer a user spends logged into Facebook, more recent Posts will appear while fewer “Top Stories” surface. Conversely, if a user logs into Facebook for the first time in several days, the News Feed will attempt to catch the user up on the most important stories. As determined by Facebook’s EdgeRank, brand posts can appear as a top story to a user, just as it could appear in the “Top Stories” section under the old News Feed split. Additionally, users can fine-tune their News Feed, using the blue triangle in the top left corner to demote a story from “Top Stories” status or promote a recent story to “Top Story” status. Facebook will adapt to surface content it feels users will find important based on these adjusted settings.
2. News Feed Ticker
Important for brands: Status updates and activities from brands will dynamically load and appear in a users’ News Feed Ticker. Additionally, users can see when their friends ‘Like’ a particular Page, and can hover over that story to ‘Like’ that Page directly from the Ticker.
The low-down: The News Feed change that prompted hundreds of status updates from Facebook users was the widespread implementation of the Ticker on the right side of the News Feed. The Ticker dynamically updates to bring users a constant flow of their friends’ activity on the platform. Updates range from a friend posting a status update or photo to smaller actions such as commenting or ‘liking’ a particular link or video. Users can hover over any of the Ticker stories to see an expanded version of the story, displaying media and allowing users to ‘Like,’ Comment or Share information from the story.
3. Friend Activity on the Page
Important for brands: Fans may be more inclined to spend time on a Page because they can now sift through the conversation of strangers to hone in on the way their friends are interacting with the Page.
The low-down: On Place Pages, a “Friend Activity” tab has allowed users to see check-ins from friends at a particular location. The “Friend Activity” tab has now also been placed on brand Pages as well, allowing users to view the way their friends are interacting with a particular Page. Activity displayed within the tab includes Posts that a user’s friends have interacted with or any Post that mentions or tags the name of the Page.
