Everything You Need to Know About Facebook Instant Articles – in 5 Minutes

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After an exclusive trial period, Facebook is officially releasing Instant Articles to publishers of all shapes and sizes, as announced at the company’s F8 Developer Conference, and there’s a lot for publishers to catch up on before “Going Instant”.

Since launching the trial with a select few publishers in May of 2015, much about Instant Articles has changed, though the grand idea remains the same. The HTML 5 mobile publishing platform seeks to breath new life into mobile articles with a variety of bells and whistles, including 10 times faster loading speeds.

The High Level Overview

Facebook Instant Articles are like regular articles, designed with user experience and engagement at the forefront. The fundamental difference is that instead of clicking on an article link in your newsfeed to an outside website, Facebook pulls the content and displays it right inside it’s own app. There’s no delay waiting for a web browser to load, no ugly non-optimized sites to zoom into, no obtrusive webpage widgets obscuring reading. It truly is a better experience for the reader, and that is why it will surely become the prominent method of reading articles on Facebook.

The Bells and Whistles

Instant Articles take the mobile publishing experience to a more interactive place through a variety of features, including instant loading, video auto-play, customizable typeface and layouts and embedded audio-captions. Photos are also linked to an animated map, allowing users to see the story from a more global context, and those that are typically too wide for mobile can now be revealed by tilting the device to pan. The new format also supports collaboration, giving publishers the ability to delegate roles to team members, providing each with access to tools specific to their contribution.

Early Reviews

Since launching Instant Articles to select publishers, Facebook has been collecting feedback and making tweaks, while many of those publishers have made their initial reactions public. Exactly one month before the public launch Business Insider collected some of that feedback, reporting that Instant Articles has been widely successful for those invited to the exclusive trial. Both Gawker and Vox reported a significant boost in unique visitors back to its websites. Digiday reported that LittleThings saw 15% more sharing of Instant Articles over standard ones, the Washington Post has seen a “significant” increase in repeat visits within seven days as compared to classic Facebook feed posts and Slate saw a 25% increase in Facebook visits since adopting Instant Articles.

Native Ads and Branded Content

Publishing formats that don’t conform to Facebook’s policy, including syndicated articles, native ads and certain interactive article formats, however, are not yet compatible with Instant Articles. This has been identified as a significant problem for the Atlantic, which reaps more than 60% of its revenue from native advertising, as well as Vox, whose popular “cards” format is incompatible with Instant Articles. Sponsored stories commissioned through the Pressboard marketplace, however, are fully compatible with Instant Articles, since they live natively within the publisher’s own CMS, in the same way as regular editorial content.

Facebook also announced changes to its policies surrounding branded content. Until recently, posting sponsored articles and videos was not allowed unless it was part of a paid campaign through Facebook’s ad platform. They are now actively encouraging publishers to post branded content as Instant Articles, and will include a tag that identifies it as such, as reported by VentureBeat.

Changes Since The Test Launch

After some of those initial reviews came rolling in Facebook announced a few changes and updates to Instant Articles in early December, including the option of running a Facebook-only ad campaign with each article. It also gives publishers the opportunity to include more links to content from their own sites in the “related articles” section at the bottom of the template, which can include branded and sponsored posts. In response to publisher requests Facebook has also increase the limit on ads, from one ad for every 500 words to one for every 350.

The Financial Side of the Equation

Though there have been some changes since the initial test launch, Business Insider reported in March that publishers will be entitled to all of the revenue resulting from ads they sell themselves, and 70% of the revenue from ads sold through Facebook’s Audience Network, which may be a more attractive option for smaller publishers.

What You’ll Need to Get Started

Publishers can sign up here to start publishing Insant Articles. Facebook provides a step-by-step guide for getting started, but there are a few key elements worth noting. To apply for approval publishers must first submit a batch of articles for review by Facebook. Once approved, Instant Articles will become accessible through the publisher’s Facebook account, and can be previewed and debugged via the Facebook Pages Manager app. Before getting started with Instant Articles Facebook recommends that publishers familiarize themselves with the custom HTML 5 markup they uses to translate content into the Instant Articles native format.

How to Publish an Instant Article

Publishers can publish content directly from their existing content management system. Automattic, the maker of WordPress, released a customizable plugin, which creates a special RSS feed to automatically optimize posts for Instant Articles. The plugin allows publishers to check a box and have their stories appear as Instant Articles automatically.

The Broader significance

Facebook isn’t the only company striving to improve the online content consumption experience. Apple News, Snapchat and LinkedIn are also encouraging publishers to post content natively within their apps. The current model of creating content on websites and sharing those links across social platforms to attract readers is going away. Native publishing is becoming the defacto way to publish onto the most powerful social networks and Facebook’s F8 announcements have expedited the trend significantly.