Social media marketing pop quiz of the day. Are you leveraging the full-power of Facebook’s social media marketing tools to increase ROI in your business?

If this pop quiz has created overwhelm, frustration, anxiety or any other negative emotion for you then stop reading this now and call us immediately. There is zero time to waste. Social media is no longer a luxury. It’s now a non-negotiable.

If you’re answer to the pop quiz was “yes” then you may want to consider Facebook sponsored stories into your social media marketing strategy.

Here’s 6 things you need to know about Facebook sponsored stories:

1. Facebook has started to show sponsored stories in user’s news feeds.
2. Sponsored stories will only show up on Facebook pages of people who have “Liked” your business page.
3. You will not have the option to add any of your own additional information to the sponsored story. 
4. The sponsored stories will be marked on the user’s Facebook wall to clearly identify them as such.
5. Facebook users will have the option to click hide to remove these stories or even limit the number of stories from specific friends by clicking the “only important posts” option for that friends stories.
6. Sponsored stories, according to Facebook, increase two things: (1) Ad Recall and (2) Likeliness to Recommend

Facebook’s sponsored stories are attempting to tap into the idea that when we are out in the world looking for information to help us make decisions we want advice from the people we trust. The correlation here to trust is that if a fan or prospect or customer has taken the time to “Like” your business page then they trust you at some level. In such case Facebook is now providing you an avenue via sponsored stories to include in the tactics of your social media marketing strategy to better serve your fan base.

Here’s one quick example of sponsored stories.

Example: Leveraging the power of check-ins

You are a local business. Let’s say a restaurant. One of your customers shows up and performs a check-in action on their mobile phone. This action will show up as an impression on their Facebook page telling all their friends they are at your restaurant.

This example is really cool for the restaurant. The fact this person trusts you enough to be your customer and post it on their Facebook page has now just been subtly advertised to all their friends. If you don’t believe this kind of social media marketing action takes places in a BIG way just do some Google research on the social media marketing company Foursquare.

The challenge Facebook has identified with this example is that this check-in impression from your customer or prospect has a good chance of getting lost among all the other impressions happening on their Facebook page.

Therefore, Facebook created sponsored stories to provide business owners (and all Facebook users for that matter) a vehicle to help them rise above the clutter of impressions that are happening on any one Facebook wall at a given time. A sponsored story allows the friends of the Facebook page owner to click through the sponsored story to your Facebook business page and then “Like” it.

The implications here are tremendous for your business not to mention at the very least creating more organic content for you.

So, if you want the check-in impressions of your customers and prospects to prominently show up on their Facebook wall for all their friends to see then you can decide to make check-ins part of your sponsored stories social media marketing strategy. You can do the same for “Likes”.

Will Facebook’s sponsored stories stick?

We believe they will. Facebook has chosen to be more considerate of the user experience than they were in previous failed attempts of placing ads into the newsfeed.

Facebook’s decision to roll out sponsored stories to users slowly is a wise one. Early indications represent no more than one sponsored story per day showing up on a users wall. While business owners may prefer Facebook to do more initially, the most important factor for business owners and marketers is adoption by Facebook users.

Too much at one time will likely cause backlash from the Facebook community and kill the sponsored stories movement. We are predicting that sponsored stories with have higher click through rates than ads on the side of the page. Time will tell.

As social media marketing on Facebook continues to evolve by providing business owners with better more effective ways to reach prospects and customers keep your marketing eye on this sponsored stories movement. It may prove to be one of the most effective ways for you to reach your customers. If you require some expert advice about how Facebook’s sponsored stories fit into an effective social media marketing strategy for your business we can help.  Call us today! (303) 578-1290 

What’s your opinion on Facebook sponsored stories? Share with us below!

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Chris White is the Grand Poobah of Social Media at Poobah Marketing a Denver-based SEO company that helps small to medium businesses dominate online and on mobile devices.  For more information, visit PoobahMarketing.com or call (303) 578-1290.  Mention this article and get a free 20 minute business marketing consultation.