Facebook is continually introducing new features to improve the user experience. Last week Facebook announced they are making it easier for users to share feedback and control what they see in their News Feeds. The News Feed is where most people go to get a feel of what their friends and pages they follow are sharing at any particular moment. These changes are great news for Facebook users, since it will offer ways to better customize the types of posts users can see. This is important because you don’t always see all of the posts that are most important to you, even when they are made by friends and people (or brands) to whom you are connected. This is because everyone tends to use Facebook differently. There are those who post a lot and those who rarely post anything at all. This newest set of changes is intended to allow people to have greater control over what they see and from whom.
Here are the options that are available for users of both the Facebook mobile app and web interface:
It’s now easy to unfollow and refollow people and pages
Settings on the News Feed will now show you a list of the top people, groups and pages that you’ve seen over the past week. You can now unfollow any page, friend or group if you don’t want to see their updates in your News Feed. You also have the option to revisit your unfollow list and refollow those people and pages to see their stories again.
More ways to offer feedback about your newsfeed
What’s cool about the new feature rolled out by Facebook is that you can make changes instantly to what you see. Let’s say you see a story you are not interested in your News Feed. You can just tap the arrow on top right of that particular story to hide it. When you hide the story, you’ll be given the option to ask to see less from that page or person. Pretty cool, isn’t it?
Also, remember you can always visit your News Feed settings at any time to see everything you have unfollowed in the past and re-follow. You can see an example here:
The enhanced News Feed settings are now available on the desktop and will be coming soon to mobile. If you want to know more about how you can use the new feature, visit Facebook’s Help Center.
This new feature is yet another move by Facebook to try and keep users happy. By giving us the ability to select what is relevant to and control what we see in our News Feed, it does what Facebook wants – keeps us on the site loner.
How will theses new controls affect the brand pages? Hopefully this will tend to push brand owners, their agencies and publishers, to make sure they create and post content people want to see and engage with. I really don’t see many posts from brands I follow, unless they are paying for sponsored posts. What about you?
Have you noticed these newest changes in the News Feed? What do you think?
Related articles on this topic:
Facebook Just Made It Super Easy to Kick Junk Out of Your News Feed
Facebook iOs App Now Shows More Stories From Pages You Share
photo credit: Poster Boy NYC via photopin cc
Shelly Kramer is a Principal Analyst and Founding Partner at Futurum Research. A serial entrepreneur with a technology centric focus, she has worked alongside some of the world’s largest brands to embrace disruption and spur innovation, understand and address the realities of the connected customer, and help navigate the process of digital transformation. She brings 20 years’ experience as a brand strategist to her work at Futurum, and has deep experience helping global companies with marketing challenges, GTM strategies, messaging develoment, and driving strategy and digital transformation for B2B brands across multiple verticals. Shelly’s coverage areas include Collaboration/CX/SaaS, platforms, ESG, and Cybersecurity, as well as topics and trends related to the Future of Work, the transformation of the workplace and how people and technology are driving that transformation. A transplanted New Yorker, she has learned to love life in the Midwest, and has firsthand experience that some of the most innovative minds and most successful companies in the world also happen to live in “flyover country.”
