Facebook News Feed Update: The Power of Choice

For those of us who are tired of constantly scrolling through our news feeds to find relevant and engaging content that we actually care about, not to worry. Facebook has found a solution.

Facebook recently announced that it is experimenting with a new feature for its news feed algorithm that will allow users to select the friends and pages they don’t want to miss out on. Any posts related to the user’s selected friends will be given priority and will appear at the top of that user’s news feed.

According to Social Times, the test will show up for certain mobile users in a box at the top of their news feed with an animated puppy and a “see more of what you love” message.

If you tap through, you will be led to a screen displaying friends and pages with whom you have connected or engaged with in the past. From there, you have the option of choosing who you want to take priority within your news feed, ensuring you will never miss a beat.

According to a Facebook spokesperson who contacted Marketing Land, the company is planning on running this new feature as a small test. If this feature gets fully rolled out, it will make a significant impact on marketers and brands as a whole, since Facebook typically serves news feed content based on behavioral interactions, rather than expressed preferences.

This preference news feed feature, could potentially give brands an opportunity to push more content and messaging out to their current fan base, in hopes to gain more qualified engagements. As organic reach has significantly dropped over the past few months, many brands and businesses have shown frustration, because it has become harder to reach people who have liked their page on Facebook.

Facebook users do currently have the option to opt in for notifications from pages, so there are no plans of getting rid of that anytime soon. Brands that have the best shot of benefiting from this new feature, are those brands that have both a loyal fan base and produce outstanding social engaging content.

The key takeaway is to make sure that you choose the content you would like to see wisely, and continue to engage with brands you feel represent your lifestyle the best.