Facebook Feed Changes | The Digital Clicks Blog
Facebook has been busy recently; they acquired a digital book firm and a chat company, and now reports have indicated that they are experimenting with their news feed. More specifically, it seems that they are planning on introducing a more lax news feed, where users will be able to (or forced to, depending on the extent) view what their friends are ‘liking’ and interacting with. It has been suggested that these experiments are geared towards the satisfaction of marketers who use Facebook as part of their SMO and PPC campaigns. PPC advertising is Facebook's greatest source of income. The problem with the ads is that no matter how targeted they can be, users who are there to socialise are not necessarily open to the idea of purchasing anything. It seems that the idea is that by leveraging social interaction, users will have more of an incentive to interact with brands and services. This seems like the same thinking behind Facebook's ‘featured stories,’ which was one of the marketing techniques detailed in their recently released Facebook for Business page. An unfiltered news feed would seemingly leave that feature obsolete as it provides its function on a much larger and constant scale. Will this de-tuning of the Facebook algorithm be met with scorn from Facebook users? Facebook ads are tolerable because they aren't particularly intrusive. While they are always visible, they don’t detract from its primary function—socialising with friends. While a less strict filter could potentially bring friends together for social activities (be they commercial or not), is it the best time to reduce the Facebook filter given the quick rise of Google+, a service that is built around segmentation and exposure at the discretion of the user? An unfiltered news feed will have to be dealt with delicately, as I’m sure Facebook is aware. It should perhaps be featured as another feed option, as forcing it on users is likely to result in annoyance and an overload of unnecessary information. There have also been rumours of an expansion of the Facebook one size fits all" button so that it may incorporate other dispositions, some potentially geared towards products (want, for example). A ‘dislike’ button has long been requested from users, and even though the usefulness of such a feature is up for debate in social and marketing terms, no matter what changes are made, Facebook should perhaps be careful to make sure its primary focus is maintaining the satisfaction of its 'social’ users instead of pandering to those in Internet marketing.