What next for Facebook advertising?
With Facebook announcing it is set to scrap Sponsored Stories Andy Spry looks at what this means for advertisers and social sharing on the site.
Facebook has announced that on the 9th April it will say goodbye to Sponsored Stories.
Since being introduced in 2011, the format – which suggests pages a user might Like based on their friends’ interactions with a sponsored page – have come under a lot of scrutiny.
It’s been a bumpy ride, from general user criticism to last year’s much-hyped lawsuit, following accusations that Facebook was misappropriating users’ likes and content without consent, resulting in Facebook having to fork out a $20 million settlement.
So, as part of a list of changes to its API ads, Facebook announced plans to scrap the controversial ad format. As the format was widely known to be a top performer, this might come as a shock to some marketers. However, this isn’t the end of ads with social context.
Facebook has also announced, that from April, the social context used in Sponsored Stories will become commonplace in all ad units on the platform. So while Sponsored Stories are disappearing, the social concept behind them will be present across the site.
Of course, that social endorsements will continue in the form of different ads doesn’t mean that the termination of Sponsored Stories won’t have a significant impact for brands.
Despite criticism, Sponsored Stories are generally regarded as one of the most effective Facebook formats. They are efficient to run and simple to set up; the only format currently that doesn’t require custom-made content.
This makes them a popular choice for both novice and experienced marketers alike. Without them, brands are going to need to think more carefully, and be more creative about the way their paid media campaigns are set up.
Getting rid of Sponsored Stories is part of Facebook’s on-going effort to streamline its ad opportunities. The majority of Facebook’s recent updates are geared towards simplifying ad units so that they are more readily understandable to Facebook’s wide variety of advertisers.
From this respect, removing the simplest format is somewhat surprising, though it is expected that other formats will now see more uplift from social context across the board.
While this means we’re going to see some new opportunities emerge for brands on Facebook, it also means brands will have to work that bit harder to get their ads noticed. As always, creativity is key.
Andy Spry is media manager at We Are Social London. See the full blog post here.
Seriously – does anyone look at ads on Facebook?
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As a professional I’d just like to say one thing to those who ran huge $ campaigns to get “Likes” for their page.
Ha ha ha!
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it appears that its Emporers new clothes time for friendface
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Hi, close here. The changes are only eliminating the option to select “Sponsored Story” as an ad type, but social context (“your friend XXX commented on this story) will still appear when targeting ‘friends of fans”. These changes are not new and have been in the works since Q3 2013.
The big picture, Facebook wants to make ads that sell better. There have been three fundamental shifts over the past few quarters: 1 ad focus shifting from right hand rail to newsfeed and mobile and 2. rise of retargeting in all ad formats. 3. Experimentation with video and auto-play to take TV buy market share and promote cross-viewing.
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You know what stops me from liking Brand pages? The idea that somewhere down the line, other people’s timelines are going to display a post that I like [Brand Page] and a link to their ads.
I would be happy to like pages and take part in their promos and marketing, but the fact that just by liking them, they can then go ahead and use me as some sort of brand ambassador down the track is scary. Especially for private people who don’t want to be known for where they shop, how they lose weight, what kind of beauty product they use, what their philosophies are, what political parties they follow etc.
Brands needs to realise that they lose likes every time someone thinks about whether they want to publicly be used by them rather than just be there to receive their messages.
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There is no negative to this.
The ad buying process will be simpler, and other recent changes make it very easy to get the right ad type for your objective.
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I think that commercial future of Facebook is in helping companies maintain connections with existing customers, not acquiring the new ones.
Brand “Like” works almost like a little loyalty card. They just need to make it more like one, without the hassle of a physical card.
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What’s with the comment at the top asking if someone seriously looks at the ads on Facebook?
If people spend 9 hours a month on Facebook, are they blinking really really hard for 5 of them?
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