by Gavin O’Malley @mp_gavin, (August 16, 2017)

For both Apple and Android mobile users, Facebook is now offering a “Trending News” section featuring lists of stories ordered by their present popularity.

The tech titan’s trending feature has been subject to significant changes in recent years. In May, it unveiled a new look for its news section.

Earlier this year, Facebook decided to accompany news stories with their respective sources, and it promised to show the same list of stories to people in the same geographical regions.

Also, Facebook recently promised an improved system to determine what is trending at any given moment. The changes were intended to surface trending topics more quickly, as well as be more effective at capturing a broader range of news and events from around the world.

After clicking on a topic in the feature, users are taken to a personalized results page, which includes additional sources and posts about that topic — rather than a particular publisher’s Facebook page or Web site.

Last August, Facebook officially automated the creation of Trending topics.

For publishers, it is difficult to overestimate the power of Facebook as a distribution platform. Indeed, 81% of U.S. consumers say they use Facebook on a regular basis, according to recent findings from System1 Research.

In terms of connectedness, Facebook was mentioned at double the rate of Google, nearly three times the rate of Apple, and more than 10 times the rate of Twitter, according to the behavioral science and marketing company formerly known as BrainJuicer.

MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily

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