Facebook has just recently released several interesting updates to their stories in a bid to improve ease of access to new advertisers.
In the last few days, Facebook and Instagram have announced new features and opportunities for businesses to drive efficiency with their advertising and engagement with customers.
Story Ads’ Efficiency
“Across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp, 1 billion stories are shared around the world every day,” according to Facebook on a recent blog. “Media planners are using both Facebook feed and stories placements individually as part of their mobile brand marketing, but recent research from Facebook shows that combining the two by adding stories to feed advertising campaigns can have an even greater impact.”
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According to a recent multi-cell test in EMEA, stories’ power continues to grow as it reveals that stories help drive efficiency by providing more placement options alongside normal newsfeed campaigns.
According to the numbers, adhering to the 9:16 dimension ratio will provide a significant boost.
New Update To Boost Ad Campaigns’ Efficiency And Ease Of Access
Facebook just launched brand-new customizable Story Ad templates for businesses as part of Ad Manager that can be used across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger stories.
Although Facebook has had automatic default templates that prepares simple content elements for stories, the new templates provide more creative and easier to edit options for users.
For those in the creative field, the templates may seem very basic. Experienced creatives, brands and agencies may notice that they have seen similar templates on websites such as Envato and international story ads over the past 3 years or so.
The new templates will provide more flexibility to create high-quality story ads for younger brands or founders while also allowing more freedom with customization to create slightly more unique ads; providing easier access to more efficient ad campaigns at less cost for those without a creative team to back them.
The current creative tools available are background color (solid or gradient), royalty free music additions and CTA effects.
Facebook noted that initial tests on Instagram Stories showed 40% increase in incremental app installs and a 29% reduction in cost per incremental click when using the new customizable templated compared to the automatic default template.
The company also recommends that businesses use its automatic placements option, which will optimize campaign across all of Facebook’s various apps to maximize engagement.
The new template is being rolled out gradually, so keep an eye out for its availability in MENA soon.
Direct Messaging For Engagement Updates
Looks like DMs are becoming staples of the Instagram experience because it looks like Instagram engineers are working on bringing DMs to desktop and expanding its features for businesses.
Instagram is working on Direct for the desktop website pic.twitter.com/2Yc0T94wh1
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) October 9, 2019
Facebook will also be adding new features to manage and improve customer communications using Instagram Direct Messaging such as
- Add labels to contacts, including ‘VIP’ and ‘New Customer’ in order to provide more context about each
- Search through contacts to find what and who you’re after faster
- Used saved replies in Direct to streamline responses for common queries
- Set up instant replies and away messages, which you can set to respond at different times
- Sort Direct messages into dedicated folders to better manage response
The new features and accessibility will provide more options for businesses and users to use DM where mobile data connectivity may be restricted due to data limits and etc. For page managers, it will provide an easier platform to connect and engage with fans on Instagram through DMs.