Today, Facebook announced the launch of a new advertising product – Facebook Sponsored Stories. Facebook Sponsored Stories gives brands & businesses greater opportunity to promote their content on Facebook, leveraging word-of-mouth recommendations that help increase the social authority of their content.
What Are Facebook Sponsored Stories?
Normally, whenever a user makes an interaction with your Facebook content – be it Liking your Facebook Page, using an application you’ve created or checking in at your location via Facebook Places – an update is generated in their News Feed, which may or may not be seen in their friend’s News Feeds. Given the dynamic nature of a News Feed, there is never a guarantee that every interaction a user makes in Facebook will be seen by all their friends; it will vary depending on activity & volume.
Since there is limited real-estate in the News Feed, Facebook Sponsored Stories fill the gap by providing a dedicated space on a user’s profile & home page for viewing interactions with your brand’s or business’ Facebook content, similar to a Facebook Ad unit. This ensures that activity generated from interactions with your Facebook content isn’t buried in a user’s News Feed. And like normal Facebook Ads, Facebook Sponsored Stories can be targeted based on a user’s interest & profile details (exact targeting capabilities vary, please contact us for more info).
The Value of Facebook Sponsored Stories – Why Do They Matter?
Facebook Sponsored Stories enable you to increase the social reach of your Facebook activities, ensuring that your brand’s or business’ Facebook efforts are reaching the largest audience possible. Facebook Sponsored Stories also support Page Updates, so anytime you make a post to your Facebook Page this update will be seen by all of your fans, maximizing the reach of your content.
Like normal organic interactions with your Facebook content that appear in a user’s News Feed, Sponsored Stories interactions can only be seen by a user’s Facebook friends. When a Facebook user sees that one of their friends has interacted with your brand or business on Facebook, this adds a certain level of social authority to your message. The greater value a user places on their friend’s opinion, the more social authority is given to your message (eg. My friend John is a snazzy dresser. He just liked Fashion Brand X on Facebook. I’m going to check this out & see that they have to offer). Leveraging social authority is a key pillar of social marketing.
Facebook Advertising or Facebook Sponsored Stories?
Facebook Sponsored Stories shouldn’t be viewed as a replacement product for Facebook Advertising, but more of a complimentary product that can be used to increase the reach & effectiveness of your brand’s or company’s current Facebook presence. Facebook Sponsored Stories are a great tool that can be used to spread the day-to-day reach of organic interactions with your Facebook content, while Facebook Advertising can be leveraged to promote campaign specific messaging to users not currently following or aware of your brand or company.
Get Facebook Sponsored Stories
Facebook Sponsored stories are a great way to ensure the reach of your brand’s or company’s current Facebook content, leveraging word-of-mouth recommendations & social authority. To better learn how your brand or business can leverage Facebook Sponsored Stories, talk to mark2marketing today!
