Facebook announced news feed changes on Thursday 8th March 2013, here's a breakdown of some our favourite soundbites from what is happening at Facebook.
Zuckerberg said the Facebook news feed aimed to create a "personalised newspaper" for the site.
Facebook reported in January that 1.06 billion people were using its service at least once a month.
It also revealed that its profit for the last three months of 2012 was 79% down on the same period the previous year despite a rise in sales because of increased spending on research and development.
The new design brings a more visual look to Facebook, reflecting the fact that photographs now account for 50% of all content on news feed, up from 25% since November 2011.
"The design of your news feed needs to reflect this evolving face of who you're sharing with," Zuckerberg said.
Experts said the overhaul is the most significant in years for Facebook, which has been under pressure to increase revenue growth while keeping users on side since Zuckerberg made the company public on 17 May last year.
Facebook only began showing ads in users' news feeds in 2012, but it quickly proved a vitally important part of the business.
"The news feed advertising is where Facebook is having the success, both on mobile and on the desktop," said Ian Maude, an internet analyst at Enders Analysis.
"The trick is going to be managing the volume of ads people see in the news feed and getting the balance right between maximising revenue but also keeping users happy."
The Guardian says "Maude said the reception from users to the changes would depend on how many ads appear in their news feed.
"It's not surprising that Facebook is doing a refresh as ads are now an integral part of news feed whether users like it or not," he said.
"But I think Facebook are quite sensitive to overloading people with too many ads. The site has been overdue a shave and a haircut."
The changes will allow marketers to develop more striking ads that will sit alongside videos, photographs and other updates in users' news feeds. Marketers believe the news feed is the most affective way to reach potential customers, attracting a higher click-through rate than sponsored ads on the right-hand side of the site.
According to research firm eMarketer, Facebook earned more US mobile display revenue than any other publisher last year, with an 18.4% share of the entire market, thanks to ads in the news feed. The move helped overall ad revenues rise 36% year-on-year to $4.27bn in 2012, according to the company's most recent full-year results. Says The Guardian.
The "facebook" logo has been replaced with the iconic "f". A change already seen by selected group of users given early access to the Graph Search facility.
The social network already knows that engagement with ads in its main news feed is greater than with those that appear on the right-hand side of its web browser. This column of adverts is absent from its mobile apps altogether.
Enlarging the news feed now allows a sponsored post to become by far the biggest element on the screen, taking up roughly a third of the page when viewed on a 13in (33cm) laptop display.
Another business-friendly change is that if a user "likes" an organisation a horizontal banner photo is added to posts reporting the news in addition to the brand's logo, making the update more eye-catching.
The refresh also introduces topic-specific alternatives to its news feed. Adverts will now take up more screen space, making them harder to ignore.
Chris Struhar told the BBC the ahead of the official announcement the "focus had been on stripping back the amount of information being shown on the news feed to make each post more "engaging".
"But I think Facebook are quite sensitive to overloading people with too many ads. The site has been overdue a shave and a haircut."
The refresh also introduces topic-specific alternatives to its
news feed. Adverts will now take up more screen space, making them harder
to ignore.
Chris
Struhar told the BBC the ahead of the official announcement the "focus had
been on stripping back the amount of information being shown on the news feed
to make each post more "engaging".
"We aren't changing where
adverts show up or what ads you see. We're just trying to take all the content
that you do see and make that bigger and more immersive and more
engaging."
He added that further
amendments might be made once users had had a chance to provide feedback.
I think the design, which is a lot less cluttered, actually
cleans up the whole thing quite a lot," he told the BBC.
"It's
really a case of making sure you have high quality advertising content. Facebook
will have to make that work because they have to make money. I suspect in the
weeks to come they will unveil additional flexibility for advertisers.Hopefully
that will bring a lot of new opportunities." Reports the BBC Technology
Reporter Leo Kelion.
The changes will allow marketers to develop more striking ads that will sit alongside videos, photographs and other updates in users' news feeds. Marketers believe the news feed is the most affective way to reach potential customers, attracting a higher click-through rate than sponsored ads on the right-hand side of the site.
According to research firm eMarketer, Facebook earned more US mobile display revenue than any other publisher last year, with an 18.4% share of the entire market, thanks to ads in the news feed. The move helped overall ad revenues rise 36% year-on-year to $4.27bn in 2012, according to the company's most recent full-year results. Says The Guardian.
Facebook said the revamp means the social network now looks the same on smartphones, tablet computers and on the web.
The new design gradually be rolled out and made available to everyone, however users can sign up to a waiting list for early access here
We think it will be interesting to see how the alternative news feeds will affect marketers and businesses. What happens when users adopt there own "alternative news feeds" once its been rolled out? We'll split test a number of pages using various news feed themes and ad campaigns and report our findings on these.
If you would like to discuss this further please contact Corrie-Dee Whaite on Tel 01294 559480 or Mob 07411 170758.
No comments:
Post a Comment