Facebook users woke up in the middle of last week to find a slew of new changes when they logged-in to the site.

As with most changes made to the Facebook platform, the initial adjustment period has resulted in a wide range of opinions offered online. This should not be a surprise. With so many noticeable differences, things can quickly become overwhelming not only for users but also for marketers.

Last week brought a merged news feed, real-time ticker, “friends activity” page tab, new dropdown options for posts, the subscribe button for personal profiles, and smart friend lists. Not to mention the upcoming launches of “timeline” (the redesigned user profile) and a new class of open graph apps.

In the weeks ahead, marketers will have to consider how these changes impact their marketing strategies. But here, I thought it would be helpful to outline some key considerations that marketers should be thinking about in relation to one of the most important and immediate changes – the news feed redesign.

How will the news feed redesign impact page post exposure?

At this early stage, the jury is still out. We have only just started to analyze data and quantify the impact over time, but here are some initial observations.

Real-Time Ticker = Potential for Increased Impressions and Engagement

Every brand-generated post is automatically published to the new real-time ticker, a scrolling list of all actions happening across the user’s social graph.

Fan likes, actions (read, watch, listen) comments, etc. also appear in the ticker, where their friends can hover over to expand and interact with the story.     Since previously hidden Page Likes, engagements and media consumption are now visible for all friends to interact with in the ticker, the ability for a brand to organically grow its fan base and engagement may improve.

As brands continue to figure out ways to improve the reach of their social activities, understanding how people will (or won’t) use the ticker, and how quickly it scrolls in relation to activity across a person’s social graph, will be important.

News Feed May Favour Friends Over Pages

With the merging of Recent and Top News feeds into a single stream, early observations seem to indicate that posts from friends, not Pages, are given greater priority as Top Stories. Either way, Facebook appears to have updated the way it values the posts in your feed, to promote the right ones to the top.  This will be based on factors including:

1. Relevance, giving an advantage to posts that appeal to clusters of common friends, for example
2. User voting, with fans able to use the dropdown feature on each post to mark content as a top story, or
3. A paid media boost, as brands purchase Sponsored Page Posts or Sponsored Stories to create more engagement among fans and their friends

With Facebook launching smart friend list filters that exclude Pages, combined with added reasons for users to “curate” their new blended news feed, it will become increasingly important for marketers to maintain fan interest.

Three things marketers can take advantage

So how can marketers make use of these changes?  We have come up with three ways they can take advantage of the news feed redesign (but we’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below)

1. Focus on creating more engaging content strategies.

Now more than ever, news feed visibility will be driven by brands that act like publishers. Resources must be allocated to create interesting, meaningful and relevant content. Measure post performance through standard metrics such as engagement?per- thousand (EPM).

2. Understand how to take advantage of the real-­time ticker.

Develop strategies that result in fans taking more frequent and time?sensitive social actions. Optimise brand apps by designing more shareable content that also incentivises friends to interact when stories pop-up in the ticker.

3. Measure the impact of paid Facebook media on engagement.

More and more, brands that achieve success on Facebook will also be brands that understand how to use paid media to amplify Page messaging and fan engagement. Test ad buys in conjunction with content strategies. Then work to identify how social actions generated by paid media can translate to more visibility and user interaction in the ticker or news feed e.g. Sponsored Stories based on actions.

The changes to the news feed, launch of the ticker, and  will require new approaches to be tested by marketers, their creative agencies, and social media management partners. If one message is clear from last week, it is this: be cautious of the status quo.

Stephen England-Hall is the CEO of Syncapse for EMEA and Asian markets.  He has worked in the development of social media and digital platforms since they were first invented.  He now helps major multinational brands make the most of social media as a safe place to interact with customers.