How to Earn Money from Facebook Instant Article?

If you’re too much interested in making money through Facebook’s Instant Articles this article will serve as your guide. It’s going to be an exhaustive blog post, so for all those impatient readers who want an overview of the article before jumping into the details here is a gist of the content for you-

• Facebook Audience Network has empowered the marketers to make their campaigns to next level by making them compatible with mobile devices.
• Facebook’s Instant Articles is giving life to the web stories on the handsets.
• In order to reach the targeted audience on the platform publisher’s need to make use of the ‘Adsense of Facebook’ that is Audience Network.
• Publishers need a certain set of elements to get started with Instant Articles.
• Content creators can achieve their desired goals by following the procedure set for Instant Articles.
• Publishers can customise and choose the type of ad to promote their business on the platform. You can retain the revenue generated out of the ads.

You must have noticed something different in the advertisement campaigns carried on Facebook. Yes, it’s the new amazing feature- FB Instant Article stirring sensation among the advertisers. To use it to your business’s advantage, you’ll need to get into the details of its concepts. Read on…

Before we begin with the hero of this article let’s first understand what is FB Audience Network. This new premise allows the advertisers to make their Facebook ads promising for the desktop as well as for the mobile users. With the introduction of FAN, the campaigns can be extended beyond Facebook. The Audience Network has enhanced the scale of advertisement campaigns on and off the platform. From personalization to relevancy, it uses the same measurement tools. Now the market can offer enhanced app-based mobile experiences to its lookalike audiences, core audiences and custom audiences. FAN offers the option of extending the advertisements to the third party mediums (Facebook-approved) associated with the Audience Network including Instant Articles, mobile apps, mobile websites, and others.

Now let’s unveil the facts about FB Instant Article. You must be wondering why the big publishers like the Washington Post are publishing whole contents on Facebook. It is because of this new program launched back in 2015.Designed for the mobile users, Instant Article allows the advertisers to publish full articles directly on the platform so that the users can get access to the whole content right away, conveniently. Facebook earns a part of the advertising money. Here is all you need to know how—and why—it uses the platform.

Facebook Instant Articles- An Overview

Instant Articles was designed with the mission to solve the problem of slow web loading on the mobile. This Facebook product hosts a number of interactive features that give life to the web stories on the mobile itself. Plus, the users can benefit themselves with its additional features like tap-to-zoom image galleries, auto-play video, and others. The platform aims to bridge a connection between people and significant posts, photos, stories, and videos. With Instant Articles, publishers can share their stories with the people all around the globe. The quick loading feature of the programme offers enhanced the experience of watching the ads to the readers.

How to set up FB Instant Article?

If you are interested in spreading the word about your business, using Facebook Instant Articles you’ll need to some prep work. Note that the preparation depends largely on your technical expertise, a platform where the content will be published and the content amount you’re looking forward to publishing. Keeping these points in mind, follow the following steps accordingly to set up your FB Instant Article account.

Before going ahead know what you’ll need to get started

• A Facebook page– To get going with the procedure
• Facebook Pages app– For previewing your instant articles right from your Android/iPhone device.
• An RSS feed-To automate publishing contents to FB Instant Articles for display of full article(s) on the mobile web.
• Official Plug-in of Facebook Instant Articles- The mark-of this mobile publishing formation your website or blog triggers support for Mobile Pages accelerated by Google. WordPress users can manage to use the page from the plugin for use.
• Minimum 50 articles on your blog- You’ll need to submit at least 50 contents to Facebook in order to get your FB Instant Articles program approved.
• Facebook Business Manager– To contact the support team for queries regarding the program.

It is advised not to rush with the preparation of 50 articles. There is no point creating a large amount of content that fails to align with the quality standards. It’s good enough to create/publish less number of high-quality posts.

Once you have all the above-listed essentials, go ahead with the following steps-

Step 1- Signing Up

You need to have editor/admin rights of a published Facebook Page. Initially, only medium or large-sized publishers, with a minimum of hundred thousand likes/followers on their FB Page could benefit themselves with Instant Articles. So gaining eligibility for Instant Articles sign up was a difficult back then. Now, publishers of all sizes can sign up for this programme.

Step 2: Claim your URL

Choose a Facebook Page where you’d like to activate your content. After the selection, you’ll have to claim the URL that will be used for the articles. This one URL will serve as the basis for the URLs of your other posts on the platform. For this, you’ll have to verify Your Website by adding Meta tag to your FB page’s <head> tag. Then include the URL to your page’s settings. Make sure to add the URL before clicking on the ‘Claim URL’ button for finalizing the verification. Know that you are allowed verifying more than one URL in case your website has multiple subdomains or channels. All the information you need to do this can be found in the Instant

Step 3- Comply with the format

Submission of minimum five articles for review is mandatory for the publishers to get their account activated. Be sure formatting of the articles is marked-up as stated in the rules. The format of Instant Articles features a simple semantic HTML structure including special attributes and classes. For example, the data-mode attribute of images is set to full screen, so that they can render full-screen views. There is also an option of setting a data-feedback attribute that allows the users to attach comments and give a “Like” to the image directly. Further, in the row, publishers can also benefit themselves with custom Meta tags by adding them to the head tag. Note that the article’s style tag is an important element of the contents published on Instant articles so make sure it’s used wisely. If your Meta tag fails to direct the users to the original article over Google AMP then Facebook’s Instant Articles will bring you no benefits.

Step 4- Sync your blog/create articles for Instant Articles

Facebook allows the publishers to publish the articles directly from their Content Management System to the mobile apps, web, and other places where the readers can see the content. They need not create a different content for the platform. Moreover, it allows the publishers to sync their blog with Instant Articles using an API, Facebook’s publishing tools or an RSS feed.

Step 5-Check the article preview

Install the Facebook Page Manager on your device for previewing your submitted content. You will find the ‘Instant Articles’ option on the page Toolbar’s Settings menu.

Step 6- Customize your articles

Facebook offers the option of customizing the articles according to the particular preference of the publishers. They can select font styles, font colors and upload a logo of their choice during setup. However, font choices are limited to Georgia and Helvetica Neue font families. That isn’t bad, yeah! Though restrictive, styling your Instant Articles won’t demand any labor from your end. In case you create your own customised style it should match with Facebook’s Meta tag style.

Step 7- Content submission

Submit the content once you have it ready. You have two options to submit your article. First is by posting it on the Facebook account. Use the ‘+ Create’ button from the ‘Publishing Tools’ screen to submit your content directly. This option will direct you to the form where you can post your HTML code. The other option requires a Feed URL containing the content. You’ll have to wait a while to get this approach working for you. The setup time depends on the site’s platform. You may also use a plugin available for the platforms like Drupal and WordPress. You can easily make your content compliable to XML format using this plug-in. Make sure to check out all the necessary properly before beginning the process. However, both the methods are efficient but the first one is the quickest way to making your content ‘an Instant Article’.

Step 8-Wait for the review results

Don’t expect your submission to be accepted right away. Completion of the review process takes 24-48 hours. The wrong position of the image header, styling issues, and code errors are some of the common concerns that prevent publication of the article on the site. You might have to reorganize a few components in your article. Once your content gets the approval, proceed towards adding the Feed URL by pushing it to Instant Articles.

Step 9- Post approval of your Content

Once you get the approval for Instant Articles, you can access the Settings Page. The Instant Articles Settings diversify the scope of customising the content at an enhanced level. You’ll have various amazing options for your kitty including the auto-publish option from RSS Feed, which of course will make your job much easier. Using the Publishing Tool, you can publish, edit, and delete the articles you had submitted for review. Plus, you can check the performance of your articles among other Facebook app users.To sum up, you will have a variety of options to optimise your content and upgrade your Instant Articles.

How to monetize FB instant article and earn make money out of it?

There are two methods of monetizing the text-based contents like articles and blogs-

1. Incorporating direct-sold ads
2. Sponsored content

The best part is Facebook lets the content creators retain the whole amount of the revenue that’s generated on their content from the ads. You can choose either of the ways to monetize your FB Instant articles according to your preference. Here is all you need to know about the two processes-

1.      Incorporating Direct-sold ads into the Content

Undoubtedly, ads are one of the biggest income sources for the content creators. Adding directly sold ads to your digital content will bring huge profits to your business. This is one of the secrets to success of the large publishers. Instant Articles provide the increased level of flexibility so that the users can make huge revenue by incorporating their direct sold ads into their content. You can use banner ads, video ads and animated ads sold by your teams. As mentioned earlier, you are entitled to retaining 100% revenue earned from these ads. The URL designated inside the source of the article the ads. The advertisement is listed under the sponsored category so that it easily attracts the readers.

2.      Sponsored content

Branded/Sponsored Content is sponsored by a particular service/product. Influencers, publishers, and media companies publish sponsored content in order to generate revenue from their content. Any verified Facebook page featuring the blue tick mark has access to publishing sponsored content on the platform. But it is important for the publishers to adhere to Facebook’s ‘policy ‘when creating their content.

Advantages provided by Instant Articles for Sponsored Contents-

The Verified Facebook pages churn huge profits using branded content. They need to style their branded content uniquely to get their Sponsored contents published as Instant Articles. The site’s ‘article styling toolset’ allows the users to style their branded content easily, making it more interactive and influential for the readers. Instant Article’s share rate and high click rate offer multiple advantages to the publishers for branded content. You can formulate your strategies better on knowing about the perquisites. The core benefits are briefed below-

# Visually appealing content

The ‘Article Style Editor’ tool of the Instant Articles allows the publishers to make their branded content visually appealing. Facebook has included a number of appealing features in this tool that offer support for various spacing features, new text, and colors. Additionally, its real-time preview tool offers the benefit of an instant view of the edits, which is quite promising.

# Support for sponsor’s logo

The platform populates the logo of the sponsor automatically every time the sponsor’s name is marked on the Instant Articles from their Facebook page. This enriches the experience of the readers. The byline of Instant Article byline provides a clear view of the marketer’s logo, which gives a native feel to the audience and enhances their overall experience.

# Let the world know that you are partnered with your sponsors

With Instant Article, publishers can tag the name of the sponsor on branded content’s title. This makes it one of the best options to let the world know about the content creator’s partnership with a particular brand. You just have to use the ‘with’ tag when posting your sponsored content on the site. This not only increases the number of followers of that verified page but also makes it easier for the marketers to reach a huge number of potential audience.

Concluding Word

Instant Articles is indeed one of the amazing Facebook features that are proving out be highly fruitful for the publishers for monetizing their content. It is recommended for every big and small publisher. This tool helps in earning rightful pay for the time and labor invested for creating worthy contents. Just follow the steps and monetize your Instant Articles effectively. The well-established sources of generating revenue- direct ads and sponsored contents are undoubtedly innovative ways of making profits on Facebook. Facebook Audience Network is yet another amazing tool that has taken advertising campaigns to the next level. It allows the marketers to make the best use of their targeted advertising. You just have to be smart enough to use the tools to your advantage.