Facebook has personalized the News feed further making it easier for users to view the News Feed as they would like to view it. Facebook now allows users to personalize News feed by choosing the stories that they would like to see appear first in their News Feed.

To view the stories that matter the most to you, Facebook lets users choose the friends and pages that you would like to see first and at the same time see if there are any new stories posted after your last page or profile visit, making it easy for the user to stay updated.

According to Facebook ,”To help prioritize stories, and make sure you don’t miss posts from particular friends and Pages, you can now select which friends and Pages you would like to see at the top of your News Feed”.

Users can now easily follow or unfollow people and pages with a tap. To update your preference,”…. tap More in the bottom right hand corner of your mobile app. News Feed Preferences are located under Settings. You can come back at any time to update your choices.

Updated News Feed Preferences are available for iOS and will be rolling out for Android and desktop over the coming weeks.

This will have  implication for brands and publishers as now the stories that users find engaging are likely to be selected to appear first and also determine the popularity of the page.

Key Takeaways for Brand and Publishers

 

With greater control over News Feed, Brands and businesses will see the game changing from brand engagement to being the preferred brand. Brands that have built awareness with the users on Facebook, engaging them with interactive  and humorous content will now require to be the preferred brands to get the organic reach, they are seeking as well as publishers will need to be the chosen sites for the users to get their stories across first with formats that users will like to see more of.

Facebook is present through the buyer journey and using appropriate images and design can determine your brands’ success with the users choosing your brand over that of the competitors’, by opting too see more of your stories.

Facebook Advertising, therefore becomes critical for reach as you need to drive preference for your brand, giving users a new way to connect with your brand, with campaigns and offers, in a relatable context and format ensuring that you are the preferred brand. Now the users have to prefer your brand over other brands as opposed to engaging and interacting with your brand. This requires that your campaigns are targeted at the audience so that you are the “Brand of Choice” within their content eco-system. Engaging content is important to drive the brand preference. At the same time offers that are relevant to your audience may determine the success of your campaigns, thereby making local awareness and Dynamic Product Ads as well as response driven advertising important for brands to be in the consideration set of the audience.

According to TechCrunch, facebook NewsFeed algortithm priioritizes pages on Recency and Interest. Therefore, recency becomes important in addition too the overall audience interest in seeing your story first.

With the “See First” option, as an advertiser you need to achieve salience for your brand to be seen first.

Update your  profile picture with the best design that gets your brands’ digital proposition across in a moment. With a cursory glance the design has to grab the users attention and at the same evoke empathy as well as resonate with the user, as your profile pic is now your digital messaging on Facebook. You will require an image that gets the brand proposition across visually. It is similar to App Branding that requires your Brand Page Profile Pic to get your messaging across in an instant.

With the section “Discover New pages”, the visual element requires that you update video and images in your page that resonate with your audience. These are most likely to be a  combination of your newest campaigns, products, most popular posts and what you featured in the “About” section. The recency of your posts and engaging content is most likely to be the one that will determine the relevance of your page.

Create Branded Property that you can use for targeting audiences with your newer content as seen for Baskin’ Robbins “Flavor of the Month” or GoPro’s Video of the Day, that gives audience a reason to connect with your Brand over months to stay updated.