Facebook Paper Ups the Content Ante for Brands
The folks at FiftyThree – the people behind everyone’s favorite iPad sketchbook app, Paper – weren’t too happy with Facebook last week. The mega-social network launched its own magazine-style app, also called Paper.
This free, iPhone-only (for now) app is a reimagining of the Facebook experience. It’s a more interactive, highly visual way for people to interact with content on their own timelines and feeds curated from top sites by the good folks at Facebook.
Feeds are presented in a horizontal-scrolling set of cards that users swipe up to read. It’s quite beautiful (and would look even better if it were iPad-ready) and usable. It’s fast and easy to scan through a timeline and identify interesting content.
So what does this mean for brands?
Visual content is more important than ever. Instead of simple text Facebook updates, brands are going to have to create content that will live across the internet. Posts with action-oriented headlines and compelling visuals (including embedded videos) are going to get more clicks (or, in the case of Paper, swipes).
We’ve talked about visual content in the past and today, that discussion is as relevant as ever.
You’ve got to keep it relevant. Content for the sake of content is as bad as no content at all. Facebook Paper’s content sections – Tech, Ideas, LOL and more – force brands to explore where their content fits into the flow of information on the internet, and how to make it stand out.
Put another way, Facebook Paper’s structure makes it more important than ever to let your content support your brand, not the other way around.
Facebook Paper is still in its early days and won’t be replacing Facebook’s existing mobile application anytime soon. However, its fluid interface and visual-centric design shows a change in their content philosophy – and that’s something we need to watch.
Stay tuned for more as it develops.
