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facebook growing 2016Oh hello there Facebook, we hear you’re testing some exciting news feed options for your users to categorize their posts.

In Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s own words, the future of Facebook it looking to become “the best personalized newspaper” with upcoming and developing improved social feed settings. [1]

Wait a minute you might say.

Newspapers are quite complicated and their content is segmented by interest as well as other categories.

Well, that is exactly what the news feed Facebook testing is all about right now.

Multiple news feeds to post on

Recently this social network giant has been experimenting with news feed options that would allow users to specify which categories they want to create their Facebook posts. [2] Rather than an all-in-on news feed where all user posts go, having multiple categories to choose from on where to create a post opens up many new social-ecosystems based on share interest. The traditional news feed is expected remain the same, Facebook simply seeks to supplement it with secondary feeds that are just a quick touch away for users seeking a more optimized experience.

Social Times reports that Facebook began testing their new initiatives in October. And now after tests have been receiving positive results, they are seeking to move forward in expanding the feature for mobile. [3]

Categories galore

To name just a few categories currently being played around with, users have noticed options such as animals and pets, food, health and fitness, and sports among others.

Offering feeds based on shopping, style, news, and other topics will more clearly allow brands to focus on certain target groups and thus allow for more specific campaigns. These campaigns may even come as partnerships with Facebook themselves. The possibility of a “music feed” where Pitchfork.com plays a role in sharing songs and playlists is just one example. [1] Other category specific examples being presented by Facebook include product ads for news feed in conjunction with a shopping category new feed. [4]

How did the idea for a customizable news feed come about?

Perhaps this is just the latest response from Facebook to try to play clean-up.

As more people join Facebook to keep up on keeping-up…with their friends, favorite celebrities, sports teams, news sources, and brands, the more content on the news feed seems to get crowded. Surely, you’ve either complained yourself or heard complaints from others on how overwhelming the news feeds can get.social-network-76532_640

Facebook user experience has been threatened.

And so the brand has responded.

A Facebook spokeswoman said in an email that this news feed testing are a result of user requests to isolate conversations and topics on Facebook stories so that they can better focus only on what interest them. For this reason the company has decide test news feeds that allow options for people “to view different stories from people and Pages based on topic areas.” Accessible form your web browser bookmark list and navigation bar, these news feed options will give the people just what they asked for – at least that is the hope in the testing phase! [5]

Caught on to the hype about these new features advertisers?

Think about it for a moment on what this means for brands marketing and advertising on Facebook.

There won’t be just one place to promote your brand, product, event, or campaign. Now you will have the option to better target your promotions along the lines of these upcoming Facebook social feed categories. This idea will bring on ideas similar to the idea tagging where groups around certain subjects will unite and each category will have their own audience profile.

 

 

[1] https://www.adweek.com/news/technology/facebooks-revamped-news-feed-emulates-newspapers-twitter-147764
[2] https://adage.com/article/digital/facebook-tests-breaking-news-feed-interest-sections/301958/
[3] https://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/facebook-tests-topic-based-feeds/628659
[4] https://www.facebook.com/business/news/shopping-on-facebook
[5] https://www.theverge.com/2015/12/29/10683722/facebook-news-feed-customize-interests-update-shopping