De-Cluttered Design of the new Facebook Newsfeeds

More Convenient and Content-Driven – that’s what the new Facebook news feed offers.

At first glance at the new news feed it’s the bigger images that you would initially notice. Also, there is the more organized optional feeds on the right, giving you a lot of choices in filtering which specific updates you would want to see. Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, likened the news feed to “the most personalized newspaper.” And I couldn’t agree more. The news feed give a better idea and feel of what your friends or the people you follow are doing and up to.

Zuckerberg said in a press event, “How we’re all sharing is changing and the news feed needs to evolve with those changes. This is the evolving face of news feed.”

The new news feed has three major components:

• Bigger Images
• Multiple Feeds
• Mobile Consistency

When it comes to images, the new news feed really took it up a notch. And one of the best things about it is that the feed is consistent across devices, giving in to our mobile-device-driven lives. Also, “Facebook says it is following trends on where design is headed and it is clear that trend includes big photos and a clean, navigable design.”

Meanwhile, when it comes to the actual “feeds”, users have better options on the type of feeds and have more control on how the feeds are displayed. You can now subscribe to different types of feeds like, feeds all friends, close friends, music, photos, games and those who you “follow.” There’s also a chronological view available.

But with all these amazing features, how will the news feed affect publishers’ activities?

The new news feed is advantageous for publishers who publish highly visual content. It’s also great since it has less clutter and less interruptions; but most of all, you can say goodbye to Facebook spammers.

Here’s some ways publishers can make sure they take full advantage of the new news feed:

1. Go for high-quality, high-resolution images – With the current changes, photos make up nearly half of all News Feed stories. In fact, it is up from 30% compared to a year ago according to Facebook. “Facebook recommends publishers use images with a width of at least 552 pixels.”

2. Improve the cover photo – This time, when friends Like or interact with a Facebook page, that Page may be highlighted in the News Feed displaying the cover photo. According to Facebook, “Having an engaging cover photo that tells your or your Page’s story is even more important to improve your discovery through connection stories.”

3. Post trending topics – Trending topics will be highlighted in thumbnail-rich carousels in the News Feed. This is great to get more attention on topics you may want to raise.

4. Share different types of media – Since users get better and bigger images in their news feed, publishers may want to share more photos to really grab the attention of their followers. Moreover, other forms of media will soon be very active in the news feed.

These are just some of the tips publishers can take into consideration when it comes to taking advantage of the new Facebook news feed.

The New Facebook Newsfeeds is still on Beta but you can get on the waiting list by going to this page http://www.facebook.com/about/newsfeed

Check out also their “Behind the Redesign” video here:

The post Are You Ready For The New Facebook News Feed? appeared first on Ben Francia.

Getting your Facebook page posts to appear on other people’s news feeds is certainly vital if you want to provide value and at the same time drive traffic to your site. It’s also especially important in trying to nurture that relationship you have with your fans.

There are basically 2 things that affect your post’s chances of getting to appear on your fans’ news feeds. They are as follows:

• Frequency – This basically denotes the interval of time between each posts.
• Interaction – This is the number of likes and comments a post gets.

So how do you get your posts to appear in your fans’ feeds?

Here’s a short step by step tutorial:

Step 1: Make a list of blogs related to your industry. The content you offer does not have to be yours only. You can share other people’s insights into matters about your business as well. Being a curator means that people go to you for information and the hottest stuff, this translates to increasing your page’s propensity for interaction.

Step 2: Create a schedule for posting the content you’ve obtained. The interval of time is important because it’s a factor in getting your posts to appear, after all. What worked for me was posting every four hours. I post at these times:

8AM, 12PM, 4PM and 8PM.

They work pretty well for me, and I’m able to draw a reasonable amount of feedback from my audience.

Step 3: Pattern your posts like call-to-actions. Remember what I said about providing value? You need to do that whenever you post a link on your Facebook page. Write a short two-sentence blurb that explains what the link is about and why your fans must absolutely click and read through it.

This is actually one way of click training them. Click training involves developing your audience’s trust in such a way that they don’t need to read through whatever it is you post – all they have to do is click on it because they know, based on the records of the past and according to their judgment, that you care for them and the stuff you recommend is good.

Step 4: Always have an image up there. It’s essential to have an image associated to your link because people, according to research conducted, have been known to respond and click through them more often.

Step 5: Create chat ups. Chat ups are blurbs of media that explicitly ask your fans to place a comment under it. Consider “caption this”, “fill in the blanks” and “questions and polls. It allows users to not only interact with each other. It also increases your impression rate.

Step 6: Track everything. You’ll need to find out which of your posts get the most impressions and feedback. From there you can determine which factors make a post a very special one and apply the same to the future posts.

That’s just about it. I hope you found this list helpful. Let me know what you think in the comment section below.

 

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The post How to Get Your Facebook Posts to Appear More Frequently appeared first on Ben Francia.

Facebook is simply one of the best assets an Internet marketer has if he were to spread awareness and nourish trust in his community. Sadly though, while Facebook is a fairly easy social network to find your way in, a lot of marketers get lost.

The challenge basically lies in getting people to like your page. Now it may be a tad simple to get someone to click that Like button, but it involves a lot of work and arguably awesome copy skills. Of course, it’s all in the call to action and the value you’ll give them for liking your page.

So how exactly do you get more people to like your page? I’ve listed down a few things you might want to do. Check it out:

• Get an iFrame Reveal tab – Now, allowing your prospective liker to see your wall is one thing. It allows your user to scroll down and find out for themselves who you are and what you do. It’s not the best thing to do given that Facebook is a social network and that user is just a chat or notification away from wandering from your page.

What you can do is tell them straight who you are and incorporate your brand in the process. The best way to do that is by having a custom template that blocks users from seeing your wall unless they Like your page. Such is the feature that iFrame reveal tabs have and if you want to do your business some good, you better get one of them.

• Shoot a welcome video – A welcome video should be integrated with the reveal tab. The content of the video, of course, is a short introduction of who you are and what your business does for them. Do NOT pitch anything in at this point. Just focus on providing them the value they need and want and you’ll be closer to getting them to Like that page.

Besides, putting in a video for them to watch is something that’d work really well for your campaign. You’re not only giving your audience the chance to watch something awesome (provided you make a really good video), you’re also giving your business a human face that they can associate the brand with.

• Offer value – Now, if you want to get them to Like your page, you’ve got to give them extra motivation to do so. Offer a free report or send them a link to a series of videos that can address their needs. You can outline this in your welcome video.
• Optimize copy – Your reveal tab copies should point at only one thing and that’s for your users to like the page. Being consistent with what you want and giving your prospective liker enough motivation should be enough for them to like your page.

Consistency, clarity and value are three important things you’d want to remember when creating your business fan page. It’s may not always be the graphics and whiz-bang effects that gets users to Like your page, but they help.

The post Tips on Optimizing your Facebook Page appeared first on Ben Francia.