What Are Facebook Instant Articles? (Your Full Guide)

Facebook has added many features over the years. However, some of these were more successful than others. 

Facebook Instant Articles were released some years ago. Yet, they are only well-known in the journalism portion of Facebook. Let’s take a more complete look at what these articles are. 

What Are Facebook Instant Articles?

Facebook Instant Articles used to be quite popular. In fact, these articles were released with tons of partners who posted lots of content using this method. However, they are less popular now. These articles simply featured unique formatting and were uploaded directly to Facebook’s servers. Therefore, they load faster than other articles. 

For an explanation of how these articles work, keep reading.

How Does Facebook Instant Articles Work?

Facebook Instant Articles is a publishing format that displays articles much faster than traditional web versions. In other words, by optimizing the article, it loads faster when a user clicks on it. 

In many cases, how fast an article loads is vital for advertising. After all, if your article takes too long to load, then it gives users a chance to change their mind. Therefore, this formatting can be useful. 

To make this work, these articles use a standardized markup language to apply functionality to the story. In the end, this makes it load faster. Because this is applied automatically, it works well for larger publications, too. 

Alternatively, you can also apply it manually to certain posts. 

After applying the adjustment, you will need to post the article on your page as you normally would. These articles are not shared automatically. 

Furthermore, these articles are ranked in the same way that all articles are. Therefore, you do not get special bumps for using this feature. (However, it may lead to more engagement that will give you a bump.)

Are Facebook Instant Articles Worth It?

Facebook instant articles are not as popular as it was once thought they would be. For instance, many producers that partnered with the format upon launch abandoned it soon after. However, the company has continued to push this format to all journalism partners. 

Once upon a time, Instant Articles enjoyed very fast expansion. However, while it is still growing, it isn’t performing nearly as well as you might imagine. 

Of the 72 early partners that signed up to use Instant Articles at launch, 38 now post no articles in this format. Only 5 post 100% of their articles through this format.

With that said, many partners did claim they would post 100% in the new format or close to it at launch. 

However, none of this tells us why the articles are no longer getting the traction they once did.

With that said many claim that Instant Articles don’t allow for underwhelming monetization and not enough options for subscription-based publishers. 

Furthermore, limited user data is transmitted to the publication. Therefore, many publications quit using it rather quickly. 

In the end, it seems that for many publications, the potential benefit of using this formatting did not overturn the downsides. 

What Is An Instant Article Ad on Facebook?

What Is An Instant Article Ad on Facebook?

An Instant Article advertisement is an ad in the form of an article. Furthermore, Instant Articles have been optimized to load very quickly on the Facebook app. Therefore, many companies choose to use them. 

However, for this to work, the company has to send its articles to Facebook and upload it on their server. Of course, because Facebook is drawing from its own servers, this is quite a bit faster. Yet, there are also quite a few potential downsides. 

Publishers can choose to make the article an advertisement itself. However, advertisements can often appear inside the article. 

All of the advertisements are controlled through the Meta Ads Manager. This manager is extremely useful for those looking to advertise on Facebook, as it allows advertisers to control all ad activity on the platform. 

How Much Can You Earn From Facebook Instant Articles?

You can earn a small amount of money from Facebook Instant Articles. However, this amount isn’t very much. If you have a decent amount of traffic, you may earn about $100 a day. But earning anything over that is challenging. 

Exactly how much money you earn per view depends on the country the person was from. Higher-income countries usually earn you more money, for instance. 

Therefore, it helps to aim your articles at certain demographics to earn the most money. In other words, you want to target those that give you the most money per view. 

However, in most areas, Facebook has ended this feature. Therefore, you cannot get monetization from Facebook Instant Articles anymore. Instead, they are focusing their monetization scheme on short videos. 

Therefore, if you’re looking to earn money on Facebook, your best bet is to post reels. For now, at least, this is where the money is. 

Does Facebook Pay for Likes?

Facebook does not pay anyone to share or like posts. Furthermore, they will not pay you if a certain number of people like your post.

If you see a post stating that Facebook will pay for a charitable cause for every like, this is likely a scam. Some pages make these posts to get their posts liked, which may signal their popularity on Facebook.

However, there is no mechanism in place for Facebook to make direct charitable contributions. While the company does make some level of contributions, these are to charitable organizations – not directly to people. 

To know more, you can also read our posts on Facebook Reach, Facebook Reactions, and Facebook Rooms.

Conclusion

Facebook Instant Articles had a very dramatic launch. When it was begun, many companies claimed that they would make all of their posts in this format – and many companies did for a time. 

However, it isn’t particularly very popular anymore. There are many different reasons for this. For one, it limited monetization efforts by these companies. Plus, it is also an extra step companies have to take to publish articles. 

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Marques Thomas

Marques Thomas graduated with a MBA in 2011. Since then, Marques has worked in the retail and consumer service industry as a manager, advisor, and marketer. Marques is also the head writer and founder of QuerySprout.com.

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