Facebook has announced that they are in the process of rolling out an update to both the desktop and mobile versions of the social network, which will make it easier than ever to have control over what you see in your News Feed. The changes will allow people to click on a small drop down option that will provide you choices on how much you want to see from a given person or group.
For example, you can choose to say that you want to see less from a specific group, which will obviously limit the number of ‘stories’ that show up in your news feed. The biggest, and likely most concerning change for marketers is that you will also be able to completely unfollow them completely.
This will make it more important than ever for marketers to ensure they are not overwhelming their followers with updates, or people will be more likely to unfollow just to put an end to it.
In addition to the more immediate options to limit and eliminate how much you see from various groups, they are also offering a page where you can see who is providing you the most posts in your News Feed, and manage who you are following more easily.
According to the announcement from Facebook, “News Feed settings will now show a list of the top people, Pages and Groups that you’ve seen in your news Feed over the past week. You can choose to sort by people, Pages or Group posts, or see an overall summary. Unfollow any friend, Page or Group if you don’t want to see their stories in your News Feed. You can also see who you’ve unfollowed in the past and can choose to re-follow them at anytime.
It seems Facebook is aware that this update may be unpopular with businesses and marketers as Zuckerberg commented that, “…in every decision that we make, we optimize for the user first, for making it so that the people who we serve, who use Facebook, and who are reading News Feed get the best experience they can.”
You can read more information about these changes in a blog post by Facebook’s Product Manager, Greg Marra HERE.
