Like it or not, Facebook has changed its news feed again. This time, they’re rolling out a series of changes that hand the online marketing world what they’ve long desired: a new way to stand out. This news should perk the ears of small business marketing professionals looking to extend their social networking reach in a new and innovative way.
The news feed, the Facebook entry point after login, currently shows all of a user’s friends’ photos, videos, status updates and other personalized content.
So what’s different?
Facebook is now grouping trending topics together on the news feed. For example, if several friends comment separately about the new movie Moneyball, their status updates will now be seen grouped together.
This can allow marketers to relate products or services to the trending topics and target specific keywords within their content updates. For example, if a marketer notices a great amount of people referencing this particular film, they could produce original content relating back to it to strike their friends’ and followers fancies, i.e. what can marketers learn from Moneyball?
By doing so, brands will stand out in news feeds of Facebook users who already like them. This will lead to more likes, comments and unique impressions.
What else might Facebook roll out?
Both PRWeb and other online marketing experts have long wondered if a dislike button is in the works, and while we think it’d be a great new feature, there are repercussions it could cause. Facebook doesn’t necessarily want to give advertisers cold feet. Imagine how many dislikes would have come after the BP oil spill.
We do expect other feedback buttons that go beyond just the thumbs up. Facebook is testing the waters with new button options such as want, but when will we see them implemented? We’re not sure.
Facebook is also testing the idea of a completely unfiltered news feed. Instead of showing users content from people they already interact with frequently, users would see everything from everyone.
We would like to see Facebook borrow from Twitter to make trending topics searchable by key word, region and even zip code.
What changes would you like to see?
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