Facebook Instant Articles are a new platform for publishing content on Facebook that load much faster than normal articles on Facebook, have several multimedia enhancements that make this more of an experience than just an article, and ultimately give the publisher far more control than they have had previously.
Not only that, but can we say that they are just flat out awesome. The overall look and experience of Instant Articles will leave you wanting nothing less! This shiny new toy Facebook has created is currently being tested at this moment by only 9 major publishers: The New York Times, National Geographic, BuzzFeed, NBC, The Atlantic, The Guardian, BBC News, Spiegel and Bild.
Some of the cool features of Facebook Instant Articles
- The ability to integrate embedded tweets, YouTube videos, photos, image galleries, videos and interactive graphics directly into the posts, with autoplay capabilities
- A zoom feature to explore images and maps with ease
- Like or comment on pages directly in the article app
- Lightning fast page loads in mobile browsers, as much as 10X faster than normal mobile pages
- Publishers logos and Facebook Fan page follow buttons prominently displayed
- The ability to integrate Google Analytics into the articles
Sponsored content will be allowed (as with Buzzfeed) but the key here is that for best results you’ll want to publish amazing content. You aren’t tied solely to Instant Articles if you want to publish on the Newsfeed, but the advantages are huge.
The look and feel of Facebook Instant Articles will mark a raising of the bar with regards to publishing content on the web, in particular the mobile web. Once people have seen the amazing versatility and engagement achievable with this platform, you’ll have a hard time getting them to settle for anything less.