Facebook announced this morning that it will begin testing a new business discovery experience on its news feed in the US. Live, users can tap topics they are interested in under Posts and Ads in their news feed to explore related content from companies. The change comes at a time when Facebook was arguing over how Apple is doing App tracking transparency Update will have its effects small business customers – one claim many to have dismiss as misleading but led some nonetheless Mom and pop shops to express concern about the impact on their ad targeting capabilities. This new test is an example of how easily Facebook can tweak its news feed to generate more data about its users when needed.
The company suggests that users can see the change under posts and ads from companies that sell beauty products, fitness, or clothing, among other things.
The idea is that Facebook will redirect users to related companies via a newsfeed function when they take a certain action to discover related content. This, in turn, could help Facebook create a new record of its users, including which users clicked to see more and which companies they were involved with, among other things. Over time, if desired, this feature could be turned into an ad unit that businesses could pay for a higher ranking in.
“People discover companies just by scrolling through the news feed. This makes it easier to identify and consider new companies that they may not have found themselves, ”the company stated in a brief report announcement.
Facebook hasn’t detailed its further plans with the test, but said it will expand the experience to more people and businesses as it has learned from how users interact with the feature.
Credit: Facebook
Along with the news of the test, Facebook said it will roll out more tools for business owners this month, including the ability to create, post and schedule stories on both Facebook and Instagram; Make changes and edits to scheduled posts; Quickly create and manage Facebook photos and albums in Facebook’s Business Suite. Soon there will also be the option to create and save Facebook and Instagram posts as drafts from the Business Suite mobile app.
In connection with the company updates, Facebook updated the functionality of all ad products aimed at connecting businesses with customer contacts, including lead ads, call ads, and click-to-messenger lead generation.
At the beginning of this year, Facebook announced a new Facebook page that would enable companies to use their company profile on the social network, for example to post, comment and like, and to access their own dedicated newsfeed. And it had removed the like button to focus on followers.
It is no coincidence that Facebook is announcing its small business tools at a time when there is concern – much of it is loudly being shouted by Facebook itself – that its platform may be less useful to small business owners when it comes to features in the near future ad targeting becomes less precise as users vote “no” when Facebook’s iOS app asks if it can track them.