Two Facebook Updates Worth Your Attention

Facebook recently announced two significant changes coming to its platform. The announcements, released in tandem, include forthcoming changes to both Facebook’s News Feed and Live! features. The former relates to how the platform prioritizes webpages shown in a user’s mobile News Feed.

More specifically, in the coming months—which is as specific a timeline as Facebook has given—when determining which links show up in a user’s feed, the platform will begin taking into account the time it takes for a webpage to load. “If signals indicate the webpage will load quickly,” a Facebook blog post says, “the link to the webpage might appear higher in your feed.” 

While the change will also include additional new considerations for News Feed prioritization, load time is one of the few factors remodelers can control for their webpages. Systematically reducing webpage load times—by enabling browser caching and compression, optimizing images, etc.—can potentially increase a page’s prevalence on Facebook. 

The platform’s second announcement pertains to its Live! feature, which has rapidly gained popularity since launching in 2015. Users will soon be able to stream live video through Facebook Camera, use limited augmented-reality options, and stream live audio. For the savvy marketer, the updates are invaluable new tools. 

Read about more Facebook updates—month by month—here.