Facebook last year introduced a revolutionary product, I’d say, in a bid to keep you using their app without angering big publishers. And later on smaller ones like you and me. I assume that if you’re reading this, you’re most likely a publisher.
Instant Articles, means you don’t have to leave the Facebook App to read what TechCrunch, NextWeb etc (and now me) have posted. It works sort of like this:
You click on an article which has a lightning bolt on the top right corner and it is immediately available for you to read. There’s no loading, there’s no waiting. It just works.
It means more people will be reading your content as they don’t have to wait for their browsers to load.
If you have a blog and want to join in all you need to do is download the WordPress Official Instant articles plugin, set it up, apply to Facebook, create an app with Facebook developers, create at least 10 posts and submit them for review. Facebook will check your work in 3 to 5 days and get back to you.
Not all posts made will become instant articles as I have come to find out. How this works though I cannot tell.
The major question in many publishers minds is can they still make money with advertisements? And the answer is yes. But here you’ll need to apply for Facebook’s Audience network and get a code for the ads to show on your instant articles.
I am writing this to make open my process so that I can be able to help anyone who wants to do the same. In the next few days I will be checking to see my site’s stats performance, and the revenue from Facebook’s Audience network to see whether or not this helps or hurts small publishers.
But in the meantime if you see any of my articles on Facebook with a lightning bolt on the top right corner, click on it and you won’t wait for it to load. It will appear immediately like this:
Ask me anything you would want to know if you’re a blogger interested in/with instant articles. I also have Google AMP set-up for tech-ish.com but I am still not sure whether or not people are loading those pages.
I will try and share everything I know about Instant Articles with interested parties.
The only other site in Kenya I have seen with Instant Articles is CapitalFM. But I believe in its potential to make publishers reach more and more people.
