Here we go again: Facebook is rolling out a new look with widespread implications for all the network's users - and the businesses that engage with them on a daily basis.
This time the focus lies squarely on the News Feed, which has not seen a significant redesign in many years. Facebook is attempting to attack a dual-headed hydra: boredom and revenue.
A recent
Pew Research study found that 61% of surveyed Facebook users have taken a "Facebook vacation" of several weeks or more, with 10% citing lack of interest in the site itself and 10% pointing to a lack of relevance on the site. So Facebook clearly needs to continue working on the relevance issue, and is hoping that the News Feed revamp will help bring these users back - and keep currently engaged users on the site.
Revenue is also top-of-mind at Facebook, as the recent drop in stock price after the much-hyped IPO has led to criticism that the company is not doing enough to increase revenues by diversifying their advertising offering. Facebook marketers have been asking for larger, more engaging rich media ad units for years now - and Facebook is finally going to deliver.
But will the increase in ad space push more people away, or will the theoretical corresponding increase in engagement and relevance be sticky enough to balance out any perceived frustrations with the ceding of real estate to larger ads?
Read on for some instanalysis of how this new development affects marketers, business owners and executives engaged on social media in the travel industry, updated as it comes in.
"Best Personalized Newspaper"- The concept of providing "socially, locally relevant" content alongside nationwide news is going to mean that the News Feed becomes the place to get content featured - travel brands will need to truly create captivating content to get featured.
- Photos, video and other rich media are becoming more vital and important - taking center stage.
- Ability to see the most relevant news without clutter is what the team is trying to accomplish here - and with 30% of content from famous people and businesses with Pages, the business opportunity to appear in this "personalized newspaper" is enormous.
- Consider the headline as a newspaper editor might --> the headline/title has now become THE most important part of anything you write, shoot, publish and/or share.
Rich stories - visual and engaging- 50% of content in News Feed is now visual - time to rethink your rich media strategy! (You do have one of those, right?)
- Larger images, publisher icons, larger font - more like a magazine table of contents.
- Expressive storytelling - requires brands to be more engaging and intelligent with the content.
- 3rd party content become more rich as well - ie Pinterest.
- Videos will be played right in news feed.
Prominence of places- Places are getting a revamp, encouraging more people to like and check-in at different businesses and other places
- Another big deal here for those businesses using many other social media services, such as Vine, Facebook is planning to offer more prominence to 3rd party apps in the News Feed. This remains to be seen - and we're eager to find out just how far they are willing to go. One of the most frustrating things about cross-platform marketing on Facebook is that the company makes those posts just not as attractive as platform-specific posts.
Your choice of feeds - dig into any topic you want- "Most Shared" articles will be displayed in their own unit, allowing people to see popular content - and incentivize brands to encourage sharing of their pieces through compelling headlines, smart copy and rich media.
- "Richer, more engaging" news feed that is focused on what friends and networks are sharing, and what pages/brands are doing.
- Friends only feed, including only updates from friends. Other feeds include Music, Photos and a chronologically ordered Business/Band/Public Figure Pages feed. This is vital, as Facebook users can now have a dedicated place to catch up with their local businesses, brands, bands and other public figures they follow:
- Feeds allow users to more quickly find information - and hopefully stick around longer as they find the content they need.
- "Goodbye clutter. Hello bright, beautiful stories." This is the slogan of the new News Feed.
- A "Travel" feed didn't pop up in the images, but could be a very real possibility - a feed of friends who are traveling or posting away from their hometown, perhaps.
- All feeds available on desktop and mobile, so users have access to feeds no matter where they go and what platform they are on. This is huge.
- "Get Facebook out of the way" by pulling back Facebook and pushing content to the forefront. This means a consistent global navigation and visual experience no matter what device users are browsing on. "Consistency and similarity" are new watchwords for the Facebook team.
- This consistency will make it much easier for advertisers to control their message across platforms, and remove some of the unknowns.
- Wait a minute...no new advertising units announced?!?! Ahh, the new layout will apply to advertising as well.
- Strategy here is probably to get everyone used to the rich media interface, reduce the clutter, and then gradually introduce new units into the feed.
- Also, if users take well to the feed - and Facebook gets better at the relevance equation - they may be more open to engaging ad units mixed in with the organic content.
- Just like with Sponsored Stories, these ad units will likely be quietly rolled out to a hand-picked roster of advertisers prior to being opened up to others.
- This is the biggest opportunity for marketers seeking a more rich way to attract new likes and to engage with current community members. Travel is the epitome of rich media, so these expanded units are very exciting for this industry.
- This is also a huge opportunity for Facebook to charge more for the higher CTRs likely to be delivered from these expansive, front-and-center ad units.
What it all means --> how to be prepared
- Remember that travel is ideally positioned for this inevitable shift towards rich media experiences. So don't panic.
- Sit down and revisit your content strategy. How can you get more photos and videos into your ecosystem? User generated? Professional created? Consider and make a plan to act.
- Be prepared to spend some time browsing through the new layout and consider how your particular demographic might use the new design.
- Start experimenting. Note the results and how the experiments play out in the updated layout.
- Continue to create compelling, engaging content that your audience loves - and shares. Shareable content is becoming even more important, as Facebook will now be curating the Most Shared posts each day.
- Invest in Facebook ads - by building an audience that engages with your posts, you will be much more likely to appear in News Feeds. And since the feeds are now relatively identical across platforms, this offers you an additional chance to engage with mobile users that you might have missed before. And with the expanded units, marketers have a much more generous real estate with which to make a splash.
- Revisit your photo collection and, if you haven't already, make photo albums. The new cohesive presentation of these albums offers an opportunity to travel brands with a hefty back catalogue of content.
- Consider reposting some content once the News Feed has rolled out to the full community. This new engaging format might allow a "Greatest Hits" series to extend your reach - and the ROI on the content you've already created.
This is rolling out TODAY for a limited base of users:
http://facebook.com/newsfeed