Quality Content Trumps Memes: Facebook Updates News Feed To Show More Relevant News

Facebook released an FYI on their Newsroom today indicating their intention helping users find more relevant news to talk about in the News Feed.

The article states:

The goal of News Feed is to show the right content to the right people at the right time whether it’s from a close friend or a news source halfway across the world.

Facebook reportedly nearly tripled the average referral rate the media sites this past year. In an effort to connect users with more relevant news, they have release an update to the News Feed today that promises to do just that.

Facebook is paying closer attention to what accounts for high quality content, saying they have noticed users prefer links to articles about current events, their favorite sports team or shared interests as opposed to memes.

Going forward Facebook says they will become better at telling the difference between a high quality article versus a meme photo hosted off-site. High quality articles will now show up more prominently in the News Feed while memes likely won’t get as high a placement as they once did.

In addition to this change, Facebook also announced a related articles feature. Soon you will be able to see up to three related articles after clicking on a link in the News Feed.

Facebook also wants to make articles more social, so they are updating story bumping to highlight articles with new comments. With this update, articles in the News Feed will get bumped to the top after your fiends have commented on them. Facebook has already tested this feature and found that it has lead to more conversations on all types of content.

More updates on this change to the News Feed will follow as Facebook receives feedback from users. In the meantime, we’d like to know how your social media strategy is going to change as a result of this.

Are you going to focus on creating and sharing more quality content going forward? Let me know in the comments section!