Menlo Park, California – Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) said on Tuesday that, compared to web articles, mobile users are spending more time opening and sharing Instant Articles because they really load faster, just as promised. In contrast, users are more likely to abandon web articles even before they are loaded. The platform is now available to any publisher who wants to import their content into Facebook and add it to a user’s News Feeds.
From now on, it’s no longer necessary to post links that drive mobile users to publishers’ websites. Users of the social network are opening Instant Articles 20 percent more frequently than mobile web articles and they’re also sharing 30 percent more content from the platform, according to data released by Facebook this week at its F8 developer conference.
More than 1,000 publishers worldwide have adopted the feature, the company said.
“We see clear evidence that Instant Articles provides a better reading experience for people and a significant boost for publishers looking to reach their audiences on Facebook,” product manager Josh Roberts said.
The company said that mobile users are 70 percent less likely to abandon an Instant Article immediately, Venture Beat reported. If you’re a publisher who wants to quickly share content with as many people as possible, those data points are for you.
Facebook had previously confirmed that its algorithm uses factors such as article shares and engagement to determine what certain users want to see in their news feeds. Aside from the general availability of the feature, new partners and tools have been added, including integrations with Medium, WordPress, ShareThis, RebelMouse, Tempest, Sovrn and Adobe Analytics, among others.
In addition, the company announced a new chat bot functionality which will make it possible for publishers and companies to interact with users of Facebook Messenger by creating “bots” that will automatically respond to customers who have sent them a message. Users will be most likely to receive links to content they might be interested in.
Mobile users enjoying the battle between Facebook and Google
Google is also on the race for faster loading times, which gives users the chance to have improved mobile experiences on both platforms. Alphabet’s company has launched the Accelerated Mobile Pages project, which is aimed at avoiding slow browser load. The difference is that Google’s initiative can be used by other services such as Twitter because it’s open-sourced. However, Facebook’s main advantage is that users can consume content within the social network and share it right there.
Adobe Analytics’ product manager, Trevor Paulsen, told VentureBeat that while Facebook is fighting to keep users in their app, Google wants to make them spend more time in the mobile web. Of course, both companies seek shares of advertising. Paulsen suggested that publishers would better have presence on both platforms to see which one gets more traffic and happens to be more impactful to their business.
Source: The Wall Street Journal