How Will You Make This Work for You?

On April 12, Facebook is making its Instant Articles feature available to all publishers. This means if you’ve got a website where you post original content and a Facebook page, you’re good to go: you’ll have the ability to post entire articles and video content directly to Facebook, rather than having to try to lure readers into clicking a link to get the full story.

This is both good news and bad news. On the positive side, it’s now going to be easier than ever for your Facebook followers to engage with the amazing original content you’re creating to promote your business. More engagement is always a good thing, particularly if doing so prompts your audience to take action.

[Tweet “Facebook’s goal is keeping users on the platform as long as possible.”]

But all of this engagement is taking place on Facebook, not on your website. Facebook’s argument is that making Instant Articles accessible to all will make for a better user experience – no one has to wait for articles to load from the originating website – but it also accomplishes the social media network’s goal of keeping users on the platform as long as possible. This is the same reasoning that underlies the introduction of Facebook’s native video upload and the in-platform buy-buttons: the more users can do without leaving Facebook, the less they’ll leave, which means more ad revenue for Facebook.

Couple this with Facebook’s tendency to limit the organic reach of your content, and things can get really frustrating fast. Facebook is here to say, so as business owners we have to figure out the best way to make the platform work for us, instead of against us. Instant Articles will be a great tool – when used strategically, with a plan to convert interest into action in place. The time to start crafting that plan is now: April will be here before you know it.