Skinny

Facebook Changes That Will Make Brands Cry

Our Director of Social, Colin Murphy, has been futzing around in Facebook to try and figure out the changes that were implemented today. The biggest change: it seems when a user ‘likes’ content within the platform (this seems to be limited to content, not pages), that content is no longer posted to their own feed. Ruh roh. Here’s a quick rundown from Colin, followed by the other big changes.

Brands were undervalued in this update in three primary ways. First, Facebook Pages weren’t included in the photo display and Recent Stories updates. With Recent Stories, it seems like Facebook’s algorithm will favor a ‘friendship’ over a ‘brand relationship’, meaning brand content won’t show up at the top of a user’s feed. Second, with the updated newsfeed, photos on brand pages won’t look as sleek and big as they do for personal accounts.

Third, and possible most important, when a user ‘likes’ content (again, content, not pages) within the Facebook platform, that content will no longer post to the user’s wall, meaning greatly decreased impressions for brands. To clarify, content outside Facebook that is ‘liked’ will post to that user’s wall.

Here’s a breakdown of all the changes we’ve seen so far.

Like:
BIG CHANGE: “Liking” content inside the facebook platform DOES NOT publish it to your wall or the newsfeed. This includes liking posts on a friend’s wall, in the newsfeed or a brand page.
Click here for an example.

NOTE: There are three different kinds of ‘likes’. First is ‘liking’ an external page that uses OpenGraph, ie brandX.com. The second is ‘liking’ brand pages within Facebook, ie Facebook.com/brandX. The third is ‘liking’ content. So imagine you’re visiting Facebook.com/brandX, and you want to ‘like’ something they shared in their feed, a video or something. In the past if you ‘liked’ that, the video would show up in your personal feed. No longer. That function seems to have been shut down, for now. Now, a user can still ‘share’ that content and it will post to his/her feed, but in order to give it the thumbs up, the user has to ‘like’ it as well as share it.

UPDATE: Two more things. There is a fourth ‘like’. In addition to feed-content ‘liked’ from within a Facebook tab or application (within the Facebook platform) will also not post to the user’s wall. Also, and this may be a glitch, we are noticing that Pages ‘liked’ from within Facebook are not posting to our feeds. Here is an example of clicking a “Like” button within an application – Click here for an example. RESULT – It did NOT appear on the wall or newsfeed.

UPDATE: Liking a Brand Page DOES post an update to your wall. When I liked JCPenney and Levi’s they both showed up in a Recent Activity post, which was placed 3-4 posts down. Click here for an example.

BUT “liking” something outside the facebook platform, for example using the “Like” button on a web page, WILL still post it to your wall and the newsfeed.
Click here for an example.

You can also share a post inside Facebook and it will be reposted to your wall and your newsfeed.
Click here for an example.

Newsfeed:
More relevant news stories – these are weighed in using an algorithm that emphasizes relationship (friend vs. brand), likes and comments. Pushing up posts that have a certain combination of those 3 factors. (screenshot also shows single photo display and real-time friend activity feed).
Click here for an example.

Photo display – images are displayed bigger and album previews are bigger as well. But brands seem to still have the old smaller format.
Click here for an example.

Visual Changes:
New Facebook Bar, no “edit profile” link under name and Newsfeed Update Bar.
Click here for an example.

New Activity Buttons in Photo Display Mode.
Click here for an example.

New Facebook Chat List, including friend activity feed, close friends and more friends.
Click here for an example.

Subscribing to People:
Subscribing was rolled out about a month ago but now it’s more prominent. Subscribing allows people to “follow” a person on Facebook without requesting to become a “friend” (mimicking twitter).
Click here for an example. (For more info on subscribing, click here)

Your Subscribtions are displayed on your profile.
Click here for an example.

If you friend someone, you are automatically a subscriber. You can change what content you see from them in your newsfeed, by changing the subscription options for that friend.
Click here for an example.

And if you were curious, that subscription function everyone is talking about is opt-in only, so there’s no need to worry about subscribers unless you allow them to. This function is only for personal use.

Security:
“View As” allows you to view your profile page as someone else or general public.
Click here for an example.

This let’s you actually see what others can see, visualizing your privacy preferences.
Click here for an example.

UPDATE: Commenting:
Whenever you attach a link in a comment, it will pull meta data – like an image, title and copy from your link. Instead of just hyperlinking the URL.
Click here for an example.

That’s all for now. We’ll continue to update this post as the details are revealed. Keep in mind, Facebook is constantly changing things, so any of these could be reversed or modified at any time. We’ll do our best to keep you updated.

UPDATE: Allfacebook has some more unannounced updates from the site, including posts can now be 5,000 characters long (10x the original amount) and you can no longer accompany a message with a friend request. Click here to read more and see the rest of the changes.