Facebook has once again made some more changes to the ever-evolving News Feed. Users will notice a lot of differences between the feed they knew six months ago and the feed that they see today. This is because Facebook is trying to make sure you are seeing more of the content that is actually of interest to you while weeding out the things that are not.
On average, there are 1,500 stories that could show up in your personal News Feed every day. With Facebook's algorithm, though, you only see about 20% of them. Updates to the algorithm plus new designs come together to make a more personalized News Feed for each individual user.
So, what are the new changes you will be seeing?
Videos on Auto-Play
Several months ago, Facebook did some test runs of auto-play video ads. Now, over the next few months, users will begin to see more and more of these auto-play videos, including brand advertising, in their News Feeds.
The videos will play automatically, both on the desktop and mobile versions of the social network. There is no sound to the videos unless you click on them, which saves you from having to endure a cacophony from multiple videos playing at once.
Auto-play videos only include those uploaded directly to the site, not those shared from third-party sites like YouTube.
Bigger Images
Everyone knows that posts that include images get the most engagement from social media users. Now, the images that you carefully curate to go along with a post will get even more notice because they will appear larger in New Feeds.
Images now appear the width of the New Feed, making them much more impact and hard to pass up.
Quality Content
In order to make sure users are seeing more quality content in their News Feeds, Facebook changed the algorithm to allow more current events and news to appear. This change might make the social network a competitor for Twitter in the breaking news market and the conversations that come with it.
Increased Brand Content
Facebook has made some other tweaks to allow more brand content to reach a broader audience. Brands can tag one another in posts, allowing them to reach people who are following the other brands.
Reappearing Content
Users will also notice that they see the same posts in their News Feed even after they have read them. This is a way for Facebook to make sure that you are seeing content that could be a hot topic among their friends and family.
Fewer Spam Links
One of the things that irritates social media users most is clicking on a link and being taken to a page that is full of ads. Another new part of the algorithm helps prevent links to ad pages that are deemed spam by Facebook from popping up in News Feeds too often. They will still be there, but at least an attempt is being made to limit them for us.
There will always be changes made to our favorite social networks in an attempt to make sure users are getting the best experience. What changes are you happy to see on the News Feed?
Image: ReadWrite
