Facebook News: Users Now Have Greater Control over Their News Feed

POSTED IN: APPLICATIONS FOR FACEBOOK

This latest feature announced on 9 July in Facebook’s Newsroom, continues the recent series of changes made by Facebook in pursuit of a single objective: enabling users to access information that is of genuine interest to them. Below, we look at this new feature in detail so that you can explain it to your fans and give them guidance.

Up until now, the Facebook algorithm was responsible for selecting what information to show to each user based on the user’s interests and other influencing factors, such as which friends the user interacted with most, and the most-commented on or ‘liked’ posts. But the News Feed now provides lots of options for customization, giving the user the opportunity to prioritize when receiving information from people and pages that he/she follows.

Of course, Facebook users are the ones who know best what they are interested in. This is why Facebook wants to give them greater control over what they see, making their Facebook experience as satisfactory as possible.

What do the improvements consist of?

1. The user can select which friends and pages to see first

It will now be possible to prioritize the content of specific friends or pages that users wish to see first by choosing to have their publications appear at the top of the News Feed. To do this, the user can access the “News Section Preferences” and select which friends or Pages to receive publications from first by clicking on the “See first” option.

The content that these friends or Pages have shared since the user’s last visit to Facebook will appear at the top of the News Feed with a star in the upper right corner to differentiate it.

To access News Feed preferences via smartphone, the user can click “More” at the lower right corner of his or her mobile device.

2. The user will find it easier to discover new pages of interest

How does it work? It’s very simple. The tool suggests new pages based on the content that the user has ‘liked’ in the past.

Note: This new feature has already been implemented in the US and will be extended to other countries around the world over the next few days. It is already available for iOS and will soon be available for Android, for both desktop computers and laptops.

Broadly speaking, we know how these improvements will affect users, but the next question is:

How are these changes going to affect Facebook Pages?

This change could be an excellent opportunity for Facebook Pages to achieve a position of privilege in the News Feed of their followers, no longer depending only on the algorithm but on the preferences of the user.

How? By asking users to include your Page among their “See first” and encouraging them to do so by providing high quality content, good practices and creativity.

For example, you can make the following proposal: Did you know you can receive all the information we publish on our profile without missing a thing?  All you have to do is access “News Feed Preferences” which is located in the dropdown menu at the top right of your Facebook profile. In the “Pages” section you’ll be able to select the “See first” option. Don’t miss our next posts because soon we’ll be launching our next contest, giving you the chance to win dozens of prizes!

Hurry! Be the first to ask your fans and followers to give priority to your content with this new tool. Your publications will have far greater visibility.

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