5 Facebook Updates

By Hazel Burgess on 03.13.14   /   Social Media   /   Leave a comment

Yes, they’re at it again. Facebook updates includes adding, removing, creating features for the social network.

Here’s a rundown of the most recent changes to Facebook that’s good for small businesses and agencies to know about.

1. You Can Now Edit Scheduled Posts
To make the process of scheduling posts more user-friendly, Facebook updates included adding the ability to “Edit” scheduled posts. In their previous update, scheduled posts could only be edited if it included an image. Now they’ve made link-share scheduled posts available for editing as well. To do so, visit your activity log; in the right-hand corner of your scheduled post select the down arrow. Editing text-only posts is still not an option. Facebook notes that the post was edited from its original version after your post publishes.

 
2. News Feed Updated
There’s been a lot of chatter about this topic. In January, Facebook announced they were decreasing the organic reach for business Pages. They also made an algorithm tweak advising brands to abstain from posting text-based status updates. Facebook’s research indicated that individuals highly interact with text-based status updates from their friends but not so much from the brands they follow. In an attempt to rectify this, Facebook will provide higher reach to Link-share posts than text-only posts from brands.  
3. Trending Topics Added
Mimicking Twitter (again), Facebook has added a Trending Topics feature that shows the current most talked about topics across the platform. The Trending Topics section is located on the top right side of your Facebook News Feed. To view the latest mentions, posts, and comments about one of the trending topics, click on it.  
4. Ability To Target Advertisers Who Use Your Site or Mobile Apps
One of the biggest and most exciting changes for brands is the ability to target Facebook ads to visitors who have visited their website or used their mobile app. Through custom audiences you can narrow down your targeting and use enhanced call-to-action buttons to convert those visitors into customers. There are a few steps you need to take in order to set up advertising to your website or mobile audience, but they’re simple and the new feature is proving successful for many brands.  
5. Added The Mobile App “Paper”
Facebook has released a mobile app, Paper. Paper functions as a stand-alone News Feed reader which can be customized into different sections based on the users interests. The app will include established and up-and-coming publications and sources.