Facebook has announced a new way for users to follow breaking news stories and get notifications about how they unfold.
Facebook has never been a great place for breaking news. For one, its News Feed algorithm makes breaking news discovery difficult. Then there’s Facebook’s huge fake news problem. Twitter, on the other hand, is ideal for breaking news, with most social media users seeking news updates turning to the microblogging platform. It certainly hasn’t been plain sailing of course.
With Facebook’s ‘Trending News’ now gone, the social network has been finding other options for users. Now, it’s bringing in a new process that would help users easily follow a specific breaking news story, and get updates about it in News Feed.
Citing the recent example of the breaking news story of teenage soccer players getting stuck in a cave in Thailand, Facebook’s Head of News Products, Alex Hardiman, admitted that it’s “a prime example of the kind of developing news story that News Feed isn’t always well equipped to capture.”
With posts in News Feed “ranked according to their relevancy to each individual, not strictly by chronology or by how any given post relates to the other posts that appear beside it” updates tend to get scattered. Hardiman explains that “in interviews and surveys, Facebook users in the US reported that the variety and volume of content in News Feed was making it hard for even dedicated news consumers to follow developing news on the platform.”
Through the Facebook Journalism Project news organisations and Facebook have been able to figure out ways to capture stories that are alive. One of these ways is through Facebook’s ‘Breaking News’ tags that it is now expanding, also enabling users to ‘follow’ specific updates.
“Each update appears as a new post in News Feed, but users who choose to follow the overall story — by clicking a button on any of the individual updates — receive a notification whenever new content is shared”, explains Hardiman. “That notification links to a page where people can view all of the related updates in chronological order.”
This is being tested in the US, Australia, Canada, Great Britain and India, with 14 publishers. Also, more than 100 publishers are now using the breaking news label in various regions.
You might also like
More from Experts Talk
Top 6 Clubs You Never Heard Of That You Need To Join On Clubhouse
Clubhouse users will tell you to join as many clubs as possible, but how do you know which ones are …
Welcome To Clubhouse: An Insider’s Look
Clubhouse is all the rage. It's new, it's audio and it is extremely addictive. The hype is real and I'm …
The Top 5 Stories On Social Media This Week
A new musical could soon come to life on TikTok, WhatsApp users are flocking to Signal and Fiverr will run …
The Top 5 Stories On Social Media This Week
Save the date, Twitter is bringing back verification this January. Oh, and it shut own Periscope too. How was your …
3 Courses To Help You Create Better Video Content For Your Ads
Here are three free Facebook Blueprint courses to help you take your content to the next level.
The Top 5 Stories On Social Media This Week
Tamagotchi never dies, 2020 in one word and a new test for 3-way live streams on Instagram. How was your …
The Top 5 Stories On Social Media This Week
Twitter does Twitter best, Salesforce bought Slack and Apple could be working on a matte black MacBook. Are you ready?
Finding Your Way Forward: Five Key Social Trends for 2021
Henk Campher, VP of Corporate Marketing and Head of Social Impact at Hootsuite, looks at five important social trends that …