After experimenting with Instant Articles for selected publishers only, Facebook will soon be opening it to all publishers, allowing them to host content directly on the social network instead of leading people links to their website. But that’s not the only change coming to the platform. To help the publishers monetize, video ads will soon be allowed on Instant Articles as well as one additional ad unit at the bottom of every post they host on the social network.
For most publishers, having Instant Articles isn’t enough, given that there is so much content out there on Facebook. And so they need to make the most impact, and most of it happens through advertising. They will be able to put both autoplay and user-initiated video ads within the article, as well as pre-roll advertising before any editorial video. But to avoid complaints from users, the sound from autoplay video ads must be disabled. They will also be allowed to add one ad unit at the bottom of every article and can include one ad for every 350 words of content.
Facebook introduced Instant Articles as a way for publishers to give consumers access to their content within the social network itself as a way to solve slow loading times when you’re using the mobile version. But the initial feedback was that they were not able to monetize successfully, and so now the Facebook is making these changes.
Managing user experience and advertising permissions is always a tricky slope, particularly for “free” social networks like Facebook. While we happily consume content, it also gets annoying if we are bombarded with ads within the content, unless it’s compelling advertising. Let’ see if these changes will affect how we look at Instant Articles, particularly since Facebook is opening this feature to all publishers by April 12.
VIA: Wall Street Journal
