Facebook’s “See First” feature will have Business pages fighting their way to the top of user’s news feeds!

Facebook is an excellent tool to connect with old friends and family who have moved far away. You can share updates about your lives, humorous memes or even political news. But as you accumulate more friends your news feed becomes overpopulated with fake news, inspirational memes and other trivial updates that you may not necessarily care about. Have you ever missed an update from your favorite brand’s page? More importantly, have you ever wished for a way to filter out useless content to make room for news that you actually care about?

Over the last few months Facebook has been revising their news feed to prioritize content from people and brands that you care about. Despite these algorithm changes, Facebook has realized that users’ news feeds don’t always show the content that they want to see. This past Thursday, Facebook’s “See First” feature was revealed, which finally give users’ pick and choose the content they want to see from the people they care about.

Facebook’s “See First” gives users back control of their news feeds.

Facebook’s “See First” lets users select pages and friends that will appear at the top of their news feed so that they do not miss updates from sources that users care about. This also helps users clean up their news feed and get rid of updates that do not interest them, such as annoying rants.

This new feature also updates and simplifies the unfollowing process. The Facebook user can now scroll through your friends list and add them to your “unfollow” list. Conversely, this new feature allows you to see former friends and pages that you have unfollowed over the years and may have forgotten about. The new feature not only allows you to see when you unfollowed them, but also gives you the option of adding them back to your news feed.

Furthermore, there is also a new discovery tool with Facebook’s “See First” feature. Facebook allows you the option to find new pages to follow based on pages that you have liked in the past. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook commented that “Our goal is to help you connect with the people and things you care about most, and this is another step in that direction”.

Currently Facebook’s “See First” feature is only available on Facebook’s iOS mobile app, but will be introduced on Android and the web in the next few weeks.

What It Means For Marketers

This new feature will affect how brands will be able to promote themselves on the social networking platform. This feature can help brands with loyal followers who may have missed a recent update because the user’s news feed was overpopulated. Also, if followers are pinning a business’s page to the top of their news feed, it might help a brand better identify who their key audiences are when developing a new social media strategy. Furthermore, the discovery feature may allow users to find your brand’s page if you offer services similar to a Facebook user’s interests.

This new feature may, however, doom some brands that fail to effectively engage with their audiences. What many brands still seem to forget is that social media is about building and strengthening relationships. With this new innovation, a simple “like” is no longer enough.

Since Facebook users are controlling what appears on their news feed, there is a chance that a brands recent post will reach fewer people. As a result, they may have to spend more money by boosting their post, which will cause lower organic reach. This in turn could also affect the traffic to a brand’s website.

Many brands will have to change their marketing strategy due to this new feature. They need to revalue how they are engaging and entertaining their followers, as well as how they can draw attention to their pages and establish trust amongst their fans. They will have to create more meaningful content that syncs with a follower’s interest, thereby giving them a reason to pin your brand’s Facebook page to the top of their news feed.

Here at Kraus Marketing, we specialize in search engine optimization, social media marketing, and website design. We understand that new and emerging digital trends are appearing constantly. We try to remain up to date on these trends to provide you with information about the newest digital innovations. For more information call us at (973)-998-5742 or contact us online at www.KrausMarketing.com.