What do Facebook’s design changes mean for your marketing?

While Facebook began as primarily a social network for college students, it has grown into a booming marketing hub for restaurant marketing and small businesses. New job titles such as “social media marketing expert” and “social media marketing ninja” have also surfaced. But what does all the social media hype really mean for your business? How will the latest redesign of this social networking giant really affect your restaurant or small business? Continually making design changes to its newsfeed and mobile app, Facebook has once again announced a major rollout of design changes that will change how both users and your small business will interact with others.

Here are the changes to keep an eye out for with Facebook’s new newsfeed design:

Separate newsfeed channels – Currently, most users see all updates in one stream in the newsfeed on Facebook. While users have the ability to separate their friends into categories (such as work, friends, family), the new Facebook newsfeed is about to get a whole lot more categorized. Facebook will be separating user newsfeed into the following categories: All friends, Following, Photos, and Music

What does this mean for your business? In terms of staying in front of your users and not getting lost, your small business will have to think of creative ways to be relevant in more than one category. For instance, if your business only puts up status updates with text, they might only be seen in one category. However, if your business makes a habit of using photos with every status update, your brand messages have a larger change of being seen by a larger audience.

Even more visual – Facebook is paying special attention to bring focus to the photos that show up in its newsfeed. Photos will appear larger and any one that posts a link will have an even more brightly displayed picture of the photo that pops up with it. Also, videos will have more favor in the new newsfeed.

What does this mean for your business? Give your brand a larger chance of showing up in your consumer’s newsfeeds by being visual with every single status update. Remember that the visual (photo, link, video) should come first and the text should be second in terms of importance. Photos of your restaurant’s menu items is more important than ever.

Mobile ready – Take a cue from Mark Zuckerberg when he described the thought behind the new Facebook newsfeed design as “mobile-inspired.” Focus has shifted to creating an optimal user experience for those using iPads, tablets and smartphones.

What does this mean for your business? Business owners should assume that a large percentage of users on Facebook are viewing its content from a mobile device. Make sure that all links posted from your business Facebook page to your website are ready to be viewed on a mobile device. Test out the links on your status updates on a tablet or smartphone and make sure all things posted are seamless and easy for the user. Make sure your website is mobile enabled.

Here are some more things to keep in mind. According to a CopyPress study, marketers were advised that the following content brought in the highest amount of ROI for business.

 62.2% Articles

51.9% Video

37.8% Photos

What does this mean for your business? Make is a priority to make all content posted on your business Facebook page engaging. Get rid of the long paragraphs of text and find a way to better attract and engage your customers with interesting articles, video and fantastic photos.

It’s been said that the only businesses that survive are the ones that are constantly changing and adapting. Taking a cue from Facebook’s continually evolving design, make sure you take a moment and reflect on how your business continually engages with its customers both online and in person, then measure results, analyze those results and adjust.