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Health & Fitness

Facebook announced it is giving its news feed a new look and feel.

The cleaned-up version will focus on three major areas: a richer story design, cuts in news feeds, and consistency across all platforms.

It definitely takes a bit of work to be on Facebook and with these added changes being called "the biggest change in facebook history" we're all going to have to work a little harder to maintain our business pages.

Small business owners are really understanding the strategies behind facebook as a strong marketing tool. Considering all of the benefits; post timing, page organization, apps and the need to monitor comments.

There is definitely a learning curve and we all have all traveled a long and winding road figuring out how to effectively manage our facebook business pages. Over the past year, Facebook has been making changes weekly, if not daily to the business page model. I notice all the time that some of those changes come for a week and then disappear, some are completely useless for small businesses but hugely successful for large brands. There's a lot of good and a lot of frustration. Hopefully these big changes will make navigating facebook for your business - that much more of a success and this next phase will be welcome.  

The glitch is ..these big changes will roll out slowly. Like the last big change to the timeline and the elusive Graph Search that we've yet to receive - these changes will evolve and permeate our accounts over time and not in one sweeping move.

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Mark Zuckerberg shared the shiny-new details of what we have to (eventually) look forward to.
"The cleaned-up version will focus on three major areas: a richer story design, cuts in news feeds, and consistency across all platforms."


1. Design layout — facebook's goal is to make photos front and center and intends to make them even bigger and prettier (i smell Pinterest influence) Since most of what we share on facebook is visual, it only makes sense for Zuckerberg and the powers that be, let images and photos take center stage.  This applies to the social photos in your personal feed and in your albums. Articles you "like" or share will have bigger pictures and more descriptive text, and check-ins will also include a large pic and map versus just listing the location. Third-party apps, like Instagram or Pinterest will post in a more dynamic and immersive way. In regards to business pages - this is great news, ads, promoted posts and sponsored stories will be bigger as well.

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2. Multiple Feeds  To ensure that you are only seeing content from the people you care about, you will now have the option of multiple feeds — Users can subscribe to different types of feeds, friends, close friends, music, photos, games and those who a user "follows." Think of these places like little hubs of curated content, (or ..er uhm Google Circles or Pinterest Boards) which you can switch between in order to filter your information. Each feed will be in chronological order instead of the annoying Most Recent vs. Top Stories.


3. Mobile consistency  You will be able to access the same Facebook content on mobile and web, which really integrates the web on-the-go experience. It sounds like mobile will be a mirror image of the desktop version which for a heavy fb user like me is a welcome change, the navigation is said to have side navigation and more white space.

All of these changes are with a business in mind, and are set with a goal to improve advertising and offer a single location for you to effectively market your busineness. Personally, I am looking forward to these changes and very curious if you are too.

Write your opinions in the comments!! I'd love to hear your thoughts.  

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