In its attempt to become the number 1 disseminator of content, Facebook™ is pushing the boundaries of technology and working around glitches which prevent its users from accessing every piece of content shared by brands and marketers through Facebook™ pages. One of the main issues experienced by users, especially on the mobile app, is the slow loading time of articles on mobile web.
Introducing Instant Articles
The solution for this problem is Facebook™ Instant Articles – a native publishing platform which eliminates the time lag. The group of publishers invited to test this feature before it was publicly rolled out to all Facebook™ users reported 10 times faster loading on their articles. This is very good news for marketers and business owners who want to share their content in a real time manner with their users and build solid traffic and sales funnels.
Why would you want to try this new feature offered by Facebook™? The statistics will speak out better than we can:
- Instant Articles have a 20% higher click rate;
- Users are 70% less likely to abandon an Instant Article compared to other mobile web articles appearing on their Newsfeed;
- Instant Articles have a 30% higher sharing rate than other articles.
Did we make you curious? Then let us tell you more about Facebook™ Instant Articles!
1. How to Sign up for Facebook™ Instant Articles
In order to publish your articles on Facebook™ Instant Articles, you must have a Facebook™ page on which you have the Admin or Editor role. Thus, you go to instantarticles.fb.com and sign up using your Facebook™ page for validation. Once you have done this, it is time to set up your URL, which is your blog or website.
In order to have your URL set up, you will have to validate it by including a bit of code in thetag of the HTML code of your website. In this way, your blog will be linked to Facebook™ Instant Articles. Once you have done that, you have obtained access to use Instant Articles.
2. Sample Articles and Validation
Of course, Instant Articles is not a free-for-all ummoderated platform. You must still adhere to Facebook™ Community Rules and your articles have to be validated before publishing. The first few articles will be treated as samples by moderators to determine the type and quality of content which they can expect from you in the future. It is important, thus, to send typical examples of your blog posts, which are the most representative for the type of content you plan to share in the future.
Once you are white listed after sending in the sample articles, the average moderation time is 24-48 hours after you sent the article.
3. WordPress Plugin and Publishing Tools
One of the best features of Facebook™ Instant Articles is the fact that you do not need to do double work to transfer your content from the blog to Instant Articles. The WordPress plugin allows you to import your articles directly from the CMS of your blog.
If you prefer to use the publishing tools offered by Instant Articles, you will discover quite a wide range of customisations, including:
- Logo/cover image of 690 x 132 pixels;
- Background colour setting;
- Kicker, title and subtitle font selector.
Once you have formatted your article according to your wishes, you can submit it for approval.
4. Monetisation
We have reached the part which is most interesting for you as business owners. Facebook™ Instant Articles allows you to make money from your articles, by inserting ads into them. If you take care of procuring ads for your articles, you will receive 100% of the revenues. However, if you prefer to monetise your ads through Facebook™ Audience Network, you will receive 70% of the revenues. That is quite a good deal, don’t you think?
Now that you know what to expect from the new mobile feature offered by Facebook™, we can only wish you good luck in sharing and monetising valuable content to increase your sales and online reputation.