Facebook has introduced “Sponsored Stories” as a new advertising product.
This means that where you typically see promotional ads on the right column of the page, a news feed story may appear that references one of your Facebook friends’ interactions with a brand – including “likes,” application uses, check-ins, and comments on a brand’s page. The image below shows (1) what a story typically looks like in your regular Facebook news feed and (2) what it will look like as a “Sponsored Story.”
While it obviously can provide value to brands, what does this mean for the users/consumers? Well, Facebook will respect your privacy – only those who can see your news feed regularly can see your potential Sponsored Stories – but there is no option for opting out of being featured in a Sponsored Story.
Despite the potential value, it could raise issues for brands, as Sarah Perez of ReadWriteWeb points out: “The funny thing about these ‘personalized recommendations,’ as Facebook calls them, is that an ad could come from a restaurant check in that led to the worst meal of your life or showed up after you ‘liked’ a retailer only because they were running an ad that said ‘like us on Facebook for 10% off.‘”
Still, chances are high that advertisers will embrace this new ad format considering that “a Facebook-Nielsen study found ads with such [social] context – showing that a friend recently liked a brand, for example – improves ad effectiveness” (via AdWeek). Only time will tell, but what do you predict for Sponsored Stories?