Facebook Instant Articles will be great for storytellers and brands wanting to capture and delight audiences instantly and on the platform their audiences uses the most. Articles directly readable from the newsfeed will encourage more engagements (think more about publisher KPI’s like reads and then shares) of your articles in the most organic way.
I really like how Facebook discuss experience and increasing the quality of experience through page speed, auto play of videos and ability to view and move your mobile device to see the image in different ways.
Facebook data will allow publishers to create truly interactive content for their audience and reduces the fear of both publishing on “rented ground” and not being able to measure success.
I can see many brands wanting to leverage this platform and wanting to experiment with quality content.
Things to know:
- Facebook instant article is only available on iOS devices
- The service is invite only for now
- Large and Buzzfeed, BBC, The Guardian are on the first run (be interesting to see their results as have very large share numbers)
- Facebook are offering shares across other social networks – not an expected move but smart move for Facebook
- Apple will be happy with this move, Google will not (Apple want move to app, Google still need web)
- If you are on iOS and want to see an article in the live check out https://www.facebook.com/NBCNews/posts/1082337485119614 – very quick, very engaging, visually great.