After years of making content from friends and family less visible on the homepage, Facebook has created a new chronological feed.
Earlier today, Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company is launching a Feeds tab so that users can ensure they’re spotting new posts from friends, Groups and the Pages they followas they appear chronologically. “One of the most requested features for Facebook is to make sure people don’t miss friends’ posts,” he says.
The Feeds tab is aptly named “Feeds” and can be found to the right of the “Watch” icon on the bottom menu.
Matt Navarra, a social media consultant, said in a recent post that “Facebook’s TikTok-ification is complete.” He explained Facebook’s homepage will be a vertical feed sharing mostly Reels and Stories. Posts from friends and family will be limited outside of the Feeds tab. Instead, users will see more recommended posts based on Facebook’s algorithm.
Facebook's TikTok-ification is Complete
NEW Home feed
– Vertical feed
– Mostly Reels+Stories
– Algorithmic sort
– Lots of 'Recommend' posts
– Limited friends/family postsNEW Feeds tab
– Chronologic sort
– All Friends, Family, Groups, Pages posts
– NO 'Recommended' posts pic.twitter.com/28H1hdJrvt— Matt Navarra (I quit X. Follow me on Threads) (@MattNavarra) July 21, 2022
The feed changes are similar to how Instagram offers a Following and Favourites feed for users who still want to view close contacts chronologically. Both Meta platforms, however, make the algorithm the default option.
The new format is likely a way for Meta to appease criticism about the dangers of algorithmic content, especially for young users.
And, as Facebook tries to keep up with the content creation game, focusing its homepage on more recommended content will help drive up engagement for the creators it’s trying to attract and retain.