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How Will Facebook’s Redesigned News Feed Affect My Business?

Facebook’s press conference today announced the much-anticipated redesign of their news feed, a feature of their service that hasn’t seen much in a change of look since it launched. Yes, sponsored ads have added a little bit of controversy to the news feed’s history, but the look stayed the same. So how will it soon appear for us all?

Something like this:

Facebook Redesigned New Feed March 2013

First things to notice: the design is much cleaner and easier on the eyes (looks like they intelligently took a couple cues from Google Plus, in our humble opinion.) The options on the right allow for a user to select streams of certain content to show, such as photos, or music. We’re sure that competing social networks, such as Pinterest, will certainly be eyeing those features with a little fear.

But how does your strategy, as a business owner, need to change? Well if you’ve been following best practices for Facebook as we’ve discussed in the past, honestly, not much. Images remain incredibly important, as those posts are going to be even larger on a user’s display. But advertisers have known that for some time now. If you haven’t created a customized cover photo, then get on it! And make sure that the bottom half of your picture displays relevant information (or an extra delicious menu item,) because that is what will be shown when someone adds your page.

In addition, because stories will be larger, advertisements are going to be more prominent. If you don’t want to upset users who are having their entire screen space taken up by your ad, then you better make it interesting. Still, that’s the same strategy as earlier – there’s a reason Facebook won’t let you use pictures that are more than 20% words.

So what’s the lesson of the new features? More of the same, to be honest. Use visuals. Make them high-quality, interesting, and like-bait. If you’ve been doing that in the past, great, keep up the good work! But if you haven’t, then today it became even more essential to change.