Facebook’s Sponsored Stories 101

Now while Facebook has realized its money minting potential, it has reshaped its entire system and made the social network revolve around the whole concept of advertising. Facebook’s new policies suggested that your post reaches not more than 10 to 15% of its fan base thus encouraging people to sponsor their posts in order to increase their visibility among the people who have subscribed to the page for its newsfeed.

The question that now arises is what is a story? It is a description of an action that a person carries out on facebook. For eg: X likes a page Y or X likes Z’s photo Sponsoring these stories makes the post appear on the person’s friends’ newsfeed (not the small ads that appear to the right of the screen in Facebook but actually camouflaged in the newsfeed) – the ones who are most relevant. As we all know the one true story about humans, we wouldn’t want to try something unless we get an influencer or a friend’s opinion, the same goes here. When a person sees that a friend has liked a particular post and it something that is related to their interests, it will surely catch their attention. Thus leading to a like or a share as per what the person chooses.

A story can be the page itself, an application that is created to build a rich user experience or the posts from the page itself. Sponsoring stories is a good way to generate traffic towards your page but there are other factors to be taken care. The posts and stories should be relevant to your business apart from being entertaining. This is the key factor to engage the audience with your business and brand and make them aware of your services.

Social Media Predictions for 2013

“You can’t tiptoe into social media. You have to jump into the pool. People have a natural fear of it. But the scary part is not being there. Your customer is already there”

– Dave Saunders, madisonmain.com

Brands, whether big or small have come to realize this and have started being a part of this so called fad which is surely here to stay. 2012 blew our minds with success stories of Pinterest and the Facebook IPO. Here is a list of what to expect in 2013!

• Shift to visual marketing with rise of Pinterest and Instagram

  2013 will be the year when companies will realize the importance of visuals with their content and the ones that do it right will be the ones that can break through the clutter and create maximum impact. Brands will need to know what is needed to give quality visual content, whether it is on their current social networks like Facebook or emerging communities like Pinterest and Instagram.

• Importance of G+

Brands will soon realize the importance of Google Plus – not because of the social element but for the very fact that it is a Google Product and it will be the base for organizing your presence in Google and the various services that come with the package. With 500 million subscribers to Google plus within a span of two short years, shows the great potential yet to be uncovered within it.

• Rise of Mobile Internet

  

In India, with the rise of the smartphone era and the ever reducing 3g rates, there is a constant rise in the use of internet via mobile phones. Also, the tech savvy generation which grew up with the media and all the gadgets around them has finally come of age. India has recorded 300 million cell phone users in the country and this number will only increase. Hence brands should adapt to creating and strategizing their messages around this aspect

• Companies Will Shift The Focus Away From Facebook

Although Facebook is a good tool to communicate with the masses, there are

plenty of other options out there. According to a research by Raymond James, in 2012, 31% of 18 to 29 year olds are gradually option out of Facebook and migrating to other social networks in the U.S. This trend still has a little time to catch up in India but it surely will over time. To broaden their reach, brands will have to adapt to these circumstances and will have to integrate the different social media according to their needs and audiences.

• Falling in love with email again

With inboxes swamped with tons of unread information, we are used to being fed with information which is conveniently ignored and filtered out as spam. However, e-mails are still an important means of communication with the increase of smartphones and access to emails on the go, there is a lot of impact that it can create. The main reason behind using email subscription is building up a database which will be more specific to your target audience. A person can subscribe to these emails and keep himself in the loop.

• Integration of e-commerce with Social media

The growth in ecommerce over the years has been of intense. It has been adopted by all businesses – big or small and has made it convenient for selling products over the internet. It will be amazing to see Social media giants like Facebook and a few others complete the missing link and integrate ecommerce with their network, thus making sales all the more convenient for businesses as well as purchases for customers.