Facebook to Introduce Sponsored Stories to News Feed in 2012
Facebook will begin showing Sponsored Stories in the News Feed in early 2012, the company tells us.
With Sponsored Stories, companies can pay to promote organic user activity such as Liking a page, checking into a place or playing a game. These stories will be labeled as sponsored and will be the same size as other News Feed items. At launch, users will see no more than one Sponsored Story in their feed each day.
Though Facebook has not experimented with advertisements in the News Feed since 2007, we don’t expect this move to result in major user backlash. It is likely to be a boon for advertisers and pave the way for promoted content on mobile devices.
The social network is taking a cautious approach to maintain a positive user experience while giving advertisers more options to spread their messages. The only paid content users will see in their News Feed will be Sponsored Stories about friends’ activity or posts from pages they are already connected to. Pages that want to run campaigns to get new fans will not be able to advertise directly in the News Feed. We anticipate Sponsored Stories in the News Feed will have much higher click-through rates and conversions than units on the side of the page.
Here is a mockup of the feature from Facebook:
Some users might be frustrated to see sponsored content in their feeds, but we don’t anticipate this changing how most people use the site. Twitter started putting Promoted Tweets directly in users’ timelines this summer. While some users complained initially, there is no evidence to suggest this has affected overall use or growth. Facebook was also able to add Sponsored Stories to the canvas app Ticker and homepage Ticker without much noise from users. Introducing these ads in the main News Feed was a logical next step. Although the company said Sponsored Stories would not yet be included on mobile devices, we suspect the social network will do this soon.
Facebook has experimented with social ads in the News Feed as early as 2006, when users who joined sponsored groups would be notified when friends interacted with the same page. When Beacon launched in 2007, Facebook also gave advertisers the option to put messages in the News Feed. The current iteration of Sponsored Stories is more considerate of user experience because people will not see items that wouldn’t otherwise appear in their feeds organically.
There is not yet an official launch date for when these ads will enter the News Feed. Facebook tells us advertisers will not be able to specifically pay for News Feed placement and that Sponsored Stories will continue to be shown in other locations on the site. The company is still determining how these ads will be priced, whether they are premium ads or available in the self-serve Marketplace tool. Ben and Jerry’s has already partnered with Facebook to run Sponsored Stories that may run in the News Feed in 2012.
Users will be able to provide in-line feedback on Sponsored Stories, as they currently are able to with ads. Users can hide individual advertisements or all ads from a particular advertiser. Facebook also occasionally allows users to indicate whether an ad is misleading, offensive, repetitive or uninteresting, among other options.
December 20th, 2011 at 1:16 pm
[...] our peer blog Inside Facebook says it expects that sponsored stories in the main news feed ought to enjoy strong clickthrough [...]
December 20th, 2011 at 2:58 pm
[...] MAY be in the works for 2012 as well. It appears that a few sites from all walks of life such as Inside Facebook and TechCrunch have received confirmation from Facebook that these changes will appear, again, at [...]
December 20th, 2011 at 3:50 pm
[...] wir auf InsideFacebook.com & AllFacebook.com bereits berichtet haben wird Facebook in 2012 damit starten auch im Newsfeed [...]
December 20th, 2011 at 10:06 pm
[...] our peer blog Inside Facebook says it expects that sponsored stories in the main news feed ought to enjoy strong clickthrough [...]
December 20th, 2011 at 10:42 pm
[...] canlı bildirim çubuğunda da reklamlar “Sponsor Yazıları” şeklinde gösterilmekte.İlgili – Inside Facebook İlgili – TechCrunch Etiketler: facebook, facebook haber kaynağı, [...]
December 21st, 2011 at 2:14 am
[...] Az Inside Facebook szakértői blog szerint a szponzorált hírek bevonása a fő áramlatba magas átkattintási arányt eredményezhet a megfelelő célzás függvényében. [...]
December 21st, 2011 at 3:10 am
[...] of Facebook, it’s going to put “Sponsored Stories” in its news feed starting next year. [...]
December 21st, 2011 at 3:36 am
[...] normal akışı içerisinde, firma reklamları göremeye başlayacağız. Facebook tan yapılan açıklamada, seçilebilir marka reklamlarının duvarın akışı içerisinde olabilirliği [...]
December 21st, 2011 at 5:00 am
[...] our peer blog Inside Facebook says it expects that sponsored stories in the main news feed ought to enjoy strong clickthrough [...]
December 21st, 2011 at 5:24 am
[...] InsideFacebook Reported the following: With Sponsored Stories, companies can pay to promote organic user activity such as Liking a page, checking into a place or playing a game. These stories will be labeled as sponsored and will be the same size as other News Feed items. At launch, users will see no more than one Sponsored Story in their feed each day. [...]
December 21st, 2011 at 7:31 am
[...] Inside Facebook: Facebook to Introduce Sponsored Stories to News Feed in 2012 [...]
December 22nd, 2011 at 6:21 am
[...] on everyone’s “home” page (for more info about the new ticker click here). The Inside Facebook blog noted that this transition was a smooth one without much [...]
December 31st, 2011 at 12:01 am
[...] pakt de introductie van gesponsorde verslagen in de newsfeed van gebruikers volgens insidefacebook.com voorzichtig aan. Zij kunnen alleen gesponsorde verslagen zien van pagina’s of gebruikers waarmee [...]
December 31st, 2011 at 6:12 am
[...] More About Facebook Ads: After recently announcing Sponsored Stories will show up in the news feed in early 2012, Facebook published a page for learning more about Facebook [...]
January 8th, 2012 at 11:20 am
[...] More About Facebook Ads: After recently announcing Sponsored Stories will show up in the news feed in early 2012, Facebook published a page for learning more about Facebook [...]
January 12th, 2012 at 9:03 pm
[...] Theo InsideFacebook [...]
April 11th, 2012 at 8:50 am
[...] our peer blog Inside Facebook says it expects that sponsored stories in the main news feed ought to enjoy strong clickthrough [...]