San Francisco — Grappling to appease investor concerns about its growth prospects as more users access the service from wireless devices, where its advertising options have been limited, social media humongous Facebook will shortly commence testing a new way for advertisers to reach users that involves placing unsolicited ads into users’ news feeds regardless of any connection to the brand or product.
Going forward, the social networking giant has adopted a novel concept to getting users accustomed to ads slowly and incrementally. One small change, then another — that way, users get used to seeing them. Under the program, brands looking to expand their reach on Facebook may soon be able to target new users via page post ads.
Besides, companies can specifically place their ads in users’ main feeds on smartphones and personal computers, even if those members or their friends have not signaled they like the advertiser, said Annie Ta, a spokeswoman for Facebook.
The Facebook spokeswoman confirmed the roll-out. “This is a small test and we are constantly gathering feedback from people on how to improve our ad experience,” she said.
In fact, the ads will be displayed both on the desktop and mobile platforms, and would resemble as regular Facebook news feed posts, though they will be marked with a “sponsored” label and carry a “like” button, the spokeswoman added. The reach of the ads will expand based on fans liking, commenting on, or sharing the message, according to Facebook.
As a matter of fact, TechCrunch reports, that these tests are part of a hard-hitting Web and mobile news feed ad unit geared toward impressing investors. The way it would work is advertisers could pay to display their Pages in users’ news feeds without having to grow a fan base first. Currently, these Pages are only displayed in Facebook’s sidebar or Sponsored Stories.
Previously, a company could only advertise in the news feed of its fans. As the social media giant is moving out from restraining brands to only connected users. Businesses currently part of the test group can turn any post to their official page into an ad, which will appear in the news feed rather than the right-hand column of Facebook ads.
“We are initiating a very small test that will allow marketers to promote Page posts to people beyond their fans in the news feed,” a Facebook spokesperson informed CNET. “These ads may appear on both desktop and mobile and will look like other Page post ads in news feed with a sponsored label. This is a small test and we are constantly gathering feedback from people on how to improve our ad experience.”
Just last week, the social network announced that it was experimenting on a mobile ad system that directs users to the Google Play store or Apple App Store if they click on a mobile ad for an app not already installed on their smartphone. Also, during last month, Facebook said, the new system sent users to both stores 146 million times.
However, it is not yet evident when these ads will roll out to more users and become available to more advertisers.