This Thursday Facebook will hold its second big media event of the year. In January they invited us to “see what they’ve been building.” The event was the big announcement of the roll out of Graph Search. Now the news media has been invited back to the Menlo Park headquarters to “see a new look for News Feed.”
News Feed has not seen any major updates since September of 2011. There have been tweaks and minor changes in that time. Paid material, like sponsored stories, are showing up along side the photos and status updates of friends and family. But this invite seems to promise something significant. “There are some indications that the News Feed redesign could be centered around a more image-centric feed that looks similar to news readers like Flipboard,” says Matthew Panzarino, writing for TheNextWeb.
Facebook has also been testing a redesign of the Timeline in New Zealand. There may be reason to think that updating the look of News Feed could be a step in the direction of rolling out the full Timeline redesign.
Keep in mind that the vast majority of Facebook activity happens in News Feed and not on either the business or personal timelines. If your fans are liking, commenting, or sharing your posts, most likely they did it when it came up in their News Feed. Continuing to serve up valuable content that connects with your fan base is vital. How best to package that content may change depending on this upcoming redesign.
Stay tuned into Search Engine Journal for all of the information you need to maximize your Facebook presence. We will bring you the latest as we get it on Thursday.
