Facebook Sponsored Stories Ad Program to Expire Soon - How will this Impact Advertisers on Facebook?

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Facebook Sponsored Stories Ad Program - How will this Impact Advertisers on Facebook?

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Facebook finally announced the sunset of sponsored stories, its controversial ad feature, after running into a prolonged legal battle over privacy allegations. The company has posted a message on Facebook forum for developers regarding this, which said the users will no longer be allowed to create the domain and open graph sponsored stories, while existing domain and open graph sponsored stories will cease to have delivery after April 9th, 2014. Sponsored stories ads do provide advertisers a great opportunity to add social context to every ad and improve their social media outreach. Hence, this update will surely have an impact on the Facebook marketing efforts of businesses.

Sponsored Stories Ad Program – An Overview

Sponsored stories are the messages coming from your friends about their interactions (likes, comments and check-ins) with a page, app or event that a business, organization or individual has paid to highlight for improving the online visibility. Such messages would appear either in your News Feed or on the right side of your home page under the name “Sponsored” and create social endorsement for ads. To be more specific, if a Facebook user liked your company‟s product, that action and the user‟s profile picture would show up as an advertisement in their friends‟ newsfeeds or home page.

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Source: Screenshot taken from Facebook help page (Official)

This paid ad offering by Facebook thus announces who has clicked support for various company accounts and helps companies to drive fan growth and attract new social followers. Small businesses benefited the most as they could use this kind of ad to reach their target audiences easily. On the whole, it was a powerful social media marketing tool for Facebook advertisers.

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Though sponsored stories did contribute to online

Privacy Concerns of Sponsored Stories Ad Program

advertising, it challenged the privacy rights of Facebook users who do not want their personal details (including pictures) used in ads without their permission. Rankled privacy advocates filed a classaction lawsuit against Facebook alleging that the tech giant violated the privacy rights of minor by publishing their social interactions („likesâ€&#x;) and profile pictures in advertisements without their consent. The

protracted legal battle

ended in

August, 2013 when a U.S. district judge approved Facebookâ€&#x;s $20 million settlement. Following this, Facebook decided to expel the sponsored stories ad program. It had also changed the privacy policy stating that the users can opt to add or share social context (likes, comments, and check-ins) and profile pictures by specifying (social_prefs= ['allow_shares']) on the adgroup. The company reiterated on its blog post that it would not cut back social component in its ads even though the sponsored stories would be expired. The social context would appear next to all ads shown to Facebook friends if eligible.

Facebook provided around 10 types of sponsored stories for advertisers. So Facebook advertisers will have fewer options when it comes to ad types after April. Most importantly, users will decide whether they want their interactions with brands to be shared with their friends. Advertisers need focus on the following to achieve their Facebook marketing goals:

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How Does the Expiration Affect Facebook Marketing?


Focus on Social Context It is very important for advertisers to create assets that have a strong call-to-action for users to interact with the brand and content while running a fan acquisition campaigns. They should find potential ways to target friends of fans in the hopes of improving the chance of social context appearing along with the ads. They would need to develop shareable content with comprehensive and up-to-date information for that.

Enhance Social Engagement In addition to developing great content, marketers would need to focus on increasing overall engagement with their pages so as to increase the number of likes and expand outreach. Liking, commenting and checking in are needed for Facebook to provide social context around a marketerâ€&#x;s ads. You should actively participate in social activities and make constant updates. Make sure that you are using all options to promote your content.

Try Out Other Facebook Ad Formats There are number of advertisement options with Facebook including Mobile app Ads, Offers, Custom Audiences, Facebook Exchange and so on. You can plan an approach that suits your business and try these out based on your plan. Facebook success stories include the three-tiered approach of leading global hospitality company MGM Resorts International. The brand first acquired highly qualified fans into its databases and then provided Facebook offers to them.

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Getting help from a professional SEO company with expertise in social media optimization can help you to find better ways to leverage Facebook for business. You would have a dedicated team to create effective Facebook fan page designs, post interesting ads and commenting and manage overall Facebook advertising.

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