← Back to glossary

What Are Facebook Instant Articles?

The world is going mobile and the number of users preferring web surfing through their apps grows each day. Facebook Instant Articles is an instrument, which Facebook developed to speed up the delivery of information to its news feed. The main idea is allowing people to connect quickly and efficiently. With the help of Facebook’s Instant Articles platform, any publisher can deliver his content to his target customer with ease.

This tool is relatively new, starting its operations in 2015, but shows strong positive insight for a while in comparison to the articles from the mobile newsfeed:

  1. Receive 20% higher clicks
  2. Users read them 70% more carefully and do not abandon
  3. Are shared 30% more in comparison to mobile articles

In addition, users of Instant Articles are not afraid of low connection speed and are ready to enjoy rapid content loading. In most cases, the news is the primary format for such articles, but any other stories and opinion pieces can also become part of Instant Articles meaning.

Facebook Instant Articles Usage Guide

Follow these easy steps to get the most from this marketing tool online:

Step 1.Sign up for the program using link http://instantarticles.fb.com/

Step 2. Define the page for Instant Articles activation (on Facebook)

Step 3. Provide a URL for your future articles. Use Instant Articles Settings to claim the required URL

Step 4. Write your article

Step 5. Customize your article – choose the proper fonts and logo

Step 6. Send the article for review to Facebook

The most interesting thing about the platform’s application, is to investigate how its usage affects conversion rates and customer’s reach.

Advantages and Drawbacks of Instant Articles

Facebook Instant Articles tool has appeared only several years ago and marketers are still on the debate concerning its impact on customer’s experience in social media. There are several drawbacks limiting its positive impact on publishers:

  • Earning revenue is problematic – social media platform will take 30% from your ads income
  • Promotion through ads is limited – Facebook limits the number of ads displayed within your article and it becomes hard to gain substantial profits from ads
  • Unknown place within the corporate strategy – publishers fail to incorporate Instant Article within their strategy

On the contrary, the advantages of the instrument are likely to outweigh the drawbacks:

  • Related content promotion through placing the proper links within the news feed
  • Emails gathering using special capture field within the instant article
  • Brand promotion through the building of a close relationship with readers

Facebook’s Instant Articles help to bring content to customers as quickly as possible. But, their effectiveness in terms of revenue attraction remains questionable. Currently, famous brands test the solution and expect to get feedback on their customer journey. It is quite possible that more rapid content loading with Instant Articles will bring increase to content consumption within social media network.

Share
Choose what describes your business best:
What do I choose?

Enterprise: for multi-location and direct selling brands. Manage thousands of social media pages of your local distributors, partners, or franchisees.

Agency: for marketing agencies. Manage all your clients’ social media pages on one platform.

variant-popup-img