Facebook's Feed Is Changing; Don't Lose Your Local News

Facebook announced this week it will make updates over the next few months to its "News Feed." The idea? To shift what you see when you log in so that posts from your friends and family pop up first. By weighing these more meaningful posts over others, the goal is to create a happier audience.

"We built Facebook to help people stay connected and bring us closer together with the people that matter to us," said Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. "The research shows that when we use social media to connect with people we care about, it can be good for our well-being. We can feel more connected and less lonely, and that correlates with long term measures of happiness and health."

As your personal Facebook feed takes its new form, the local news you're served may get more scarce. To keep informed about what's going on in your neighborhood, here's what to do now:

Download the Patch App

Thanks to nifty notifications, you'll be the first to know everything from breaking local news to homes for sale down the street.

Get the Patch App here for iOS or here for Android

Sign Up for Real-Time News Alerts

The simplest way to sign up for Patch emails is on Facebook. Go to you local Patch Facebook page and click the blue "Sign Up" button under the cover photo to get Patched in.

Or you can hit subscribe below.

Change Your Facebook Feed Settings

To make Patch stories appear first in your feed no matter what, update your settings in two steps:

1. Go to your local Patch Facebook page
2. On desktop, hover over the "Following" button at the top of the page then click "See First" in the drop-down menu. When using the Facebook app on your phone or tablet, tap the "Follow" button at the top of the page, then change your setting to "See First" in the popup window.

Photo credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images