Facebook launched its instant article publishing platform to the entire publisher’s worldwide in April 2016 during its F8 conference.
With this platform, anyone having a facebook page or a website will be able to put their content directly on facebook instead of posting links directing the users to click on their websites.
This platform was launched in May 2015 to selective publishers to get their feedback and improve upon the system. Instant Articles was built as a solution to the slow loading time on the mobile web which impacted almost all the publishers whose audience is in a low connectivity zone. Nowadays with low patience levels, users usually do not click a site that offers slow loading time.
The platform not only works as a publishing system but also offers many interactive features like auto-play videos, tab-to-zoom image galleries, etc which help in providing an exceptional experience to mobile users.
Data so far:
The platform was under testing since May 2015 and the metrics so far have been very encouraging. Instant articles received:
- 20% more clicks than web articles
- 30% more shares and
- 70% un-likeliness to abandon reading, once clicked.
Things to know:
- Driving Revenue: Publishers can easily drive revenue from their content. If the ads are sold in the content, the publisher can take 100% of the revenue but if the ads are sold through Facebook’s audience network, Facebook takes a 30% share. When you get started with Instant articles, you have an option to opt-in to the Audience Network Ads.
- High loading speed: Instant articles load up to 10 times faster than other mobile web articles. This fast loading time is a huge advantage to readers who want access to information in an instant.
- Email capturing: Email is an important part of various content marketing strategies. There are also many publishers who want to build a direct relationship with their readers. For this, Facebook has enabled an email sign up feature within the instant articles.
- Controlling the Publishing end to end: A publisher is in control of any content that he needs to publish/skip on Facebook. Instant Articles, will allow any publisher to share their content by retaining complete control over their ads and data.
- Analytics: With Instant articles, publishers can easily use their existing web-based analytics systems to track article traffic or use any other third-party providers.
- Plugin: Facebook has released a plugin for Word press wherein all the Word press publishers and bloggers can load their posts quickly and use advanced techniques like Page Prerender, DNS Prefetch, etc.
The main goal of Facebook seems to connect the audience to the posts, stories, videos, images that matter most to them.
Instant Articles and LinkedIn Pulse:
Similar to Facebook’s Instant Article, LinkedIn has its Pulse publishing platform. But with loading speed and number of users of Facebook, it surely has an edge over Pulse. Apart from that, Pulse is a feature within the LinkedIn framework and Instant Articles with its speed and plugin just seems to be extending beyond Facebook facet, trying to reach its potential audience.
More or Less, one thing is for sure- There is yet another content platform for content lovers to try on. How much it complements one’s brand/business is yet to be seen.
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