With the newly launched Facebook Premium Ad Platform, Facebook is rolling out brand new Sponsored Stories which has garnered a lot of attention from marketers and user across the globe. While the majority of feed stories are appearing on the right side of the Facebook layout as usual, there will be a continued rollout of newly sponsored stories in the timeline that will allow marketers greater screen real estate to get their message across. There will also be the added benefit of being able to put the ad in a much more visible location on the screen in which users will be able to socially interact with and even share if they feel so compelled to.
How to get started with Facebook’s Sponsored Stories
1. First you would have to go to http://www.facebook.com/ads/create and begin the ad creation process.
2. From here you would select a page, application and/or domain that you are going to be using to promote your advertisement with sponsored stories. You will be able to add tags and demographic information which allow for greater targeted ads and will usually drive up a better CTR the more targeted your ad is.
3. The third step in the process is to select the type of stories that you would be interested in promoting. (This is where you can select from the “Type” dropdown and choose Sponsored Stories as your type of promotion method). There are other options for Pages, Places, Applications as well as custom Domains but we won’t worry about those right now.
4. Targeting options are vast on Facebook and this is where you will be able to fully customize your ad’s targeting demographics, geo-location, keywords, groupings, interests and much more. The narrower your audience is, generally the better your ad will perform. The more targeted your ad gets the less traffic you will receive, but that is the tradeoff for highly targeted ads.
5. Once you have completed the previous four steps you will be promoted for your billing information and will be able to set the budget you would like to run for the campaign. You can also include ad scheduling information as well as pricing for the product and/or service you are advertising.
To find more about Sponsored Stores take a look at this pdf provided by Facebook that outlines the entire spectrum of their Sponsored Ads. View it here.
The goal of Facebook’s Sponsored Stories marketing within Facebook is to help your business gain more viewership and media attention. By driving through targeted traffic you can hope to increase your business sales and brand awareness which is always a good thing.
About The Author:
Lorne Fade is an internet marketing veteran of over 10 years currently working with 9th sphere, a leading Toronto web design and online marketing firm.
