Designing a Facebook Sponsored Stories is not enough to get more engagements. To design a successful Facebook Sponsored Stories, you must follow these tips. Have a look!
For the beginning of the 21st Century, online advertisements and, eventually, social media have become increasingly influential in the general public making purchasing decisions. Our phones, laptops, tablets, and televisions have become the main channels of mass communication between a company and its customers. In the preceding few years, social media apps and websites like Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook have launched something called ‘stories.’
Stories are fast click pictures and videos (with time limits) designed to be short and snappy. Though most stories on a regular person’s feed will be their friends and chosen to follow pages. Yet, businesses have the opportunity to display Facebook sponsored stories or paid ‘ads’ to a targeted audience on the platform.
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8 Design Ideas for Facebook Sponsored Stories
Detailed below are eight simple and straightforward ways to design successful Facebook sponsored stories for your business that you represent.
1: Be Creative and Inventive with Content
Content is key in any advertisement, whether it is a billboard, a radio ad, or a social media advertisement. Think of who you are trying to target and what you are trying to market to that audience. It is crucial to ensure that the content that you feature in your Facebook sponsored stories is not ‘too much’. Facebook sponsored stories are designed to be ‘one-click wonders,’ usually viewed in less than five seconds. Pictures should not be overly messy or stuffed with information. Also, videos should be snappy and directed at the point you are trying to convey.
It is essential to use striking colors and captivating designs to grab and hold the attention of your viewer. Since, most people skip through most story ads unless it captures their attention within the first one to two seconds. Always refresh your advertisements so that your content does not become tired or regular. Being creative and inventive with the content that you advertise is key to ensuring the success of your Facebook sponsored stories.
2: Fit the Ad to the Spec and Platform
The specs for Facebook sponsored stories are extremely specific and it is crucial to meet these for the platform you are advertising on entirely. If you place a landscape photo in a portrait frame, the information on the story will become obsolete. Since, the advertisement will not be streamlined or captivating to the target audience, only because it does not fit the platform.
Another important side to this tip is tailoring your advertisement to suit the platform you are promoting yourself. Though some businesses choose to release a single-story across all platforms wide. But, it is much more useful to be specific and tailor your ad to the outlet you want it to affect. For example, Facebook sponsored stories could be more detailed or designed to be viewed for longer. Because, the attention span of age groups that view Facebook stories is usually longer. Simultaneously, Snapchat stories (for example) will most likely be viewed by a significantly younger audience with a brief attention span. So, your ad’s message will need to be effectively communicated and have their attention captured in the first 1-2 seconds.
3: Do not Overcomplicate Facebook Sponsored Stories
It is crucial to any advertising campaign to streamline the ad and avoid overcomplication when designing it. Sometimes the most effective ads are the simplest. Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ is one of the most popular and well-known slogans in the world, containing three simple short words. It does not even have to be precisely what you are trying to communicate, and it certainly does not need to be your company’s whole mission statement.
However, the words or ‘slogan’ used on your Facebook sponsored stories need to command attention and grab your reader’s eyes immediately. Could you keep it simple? Nobody will bother reading a paragraph full of information on a story, but they may do so once they click on your link and ‘swipe up.’
4: Segment and Target your Market
Though this may seem extraordinarily calculating and theory-oriented, it is crucial! Market segmentation and targeting are super crucial to a business’ advertisement’s success, no matter which platform they choose to advertise on, if you have the resources or money to create different ads based on different sectors of the market that you are trying to target.
A market can be segmented in a couple of different ways. Demographically, geographically, psychographically, and behaviorally. Different ads based on different groups of people will tailor the Facebook sponsored stories to different groups of individuals and increase the ad’s effectiveness. The possibility of people clicking on your link! Targeting your story will make it practical and make people feel that the ad connects to them and is personalized.
5: Figure out your Niche or Unique Selling Point
Unique selling points are vital to any business and its products. Find something that makes your product, service, or business unique to the market, especially your target audience. If it is a product that is entirely new to the market, you can advertise it as unique in and of itself. However, the challenge with this is how to make your product or service crucial or necessary to your target market’s lives. On the other hand, if the product you are marketing is already in your target market’s lives, the difficulty is forcing them to break from their current product and move to yours.
A unique selling point is needed to force this change, making people break habit, tradition, or brand loyalty. Making your product unique or exciting to people enough to swap out their current product for yours can be done by picking the most stand-out aspect of your product and focusing the story on that. Otherwise, your product and/or service will blend into the sea of alternatives and not capture the attention of your target audience.
6: Use the ‘Swipe Up’ and a Clear Call to Action
Be clear! If your story is not straightforward in what you want people to do, see, or understand, it will just fade into the thousands of stories people come across every day. The ‘swipe up’ tool is a fantastic social media feature which links business’ websites with their short stories. So, although I have encouraged your Facebook sponsored stories to be quick and efficient, if people like them enough, they will (hopefully) swipe up and visit the link your ad. Clear feature of the swipe up tool will give people a call to action, and hopefully increase the likelihood of them interacting with your business more tangibly.
If people see a pretty picture of a cake but no obvious link or direction to your webpage, they will appreciate the picture, maybe even remember your brand name if they stay on the story long enough; but will be unlikely to interact with your brand substantially in the future. However, if your business does not have enough followers to use the ‘swipe-up’ feature yet, encourage people to interact using the link in your bio. Giving a clear call to action s essential to making your story practical and useful to your business.
7: Optimize your ‘Post-Click’ Landing Page
After people click the link in your bio or swipe up on your story, they will want to be met with someone just as unique and captivating as the story that brought them there. If they are drawn in by a bouncy and colorful story but met with a boring and drab website when they follow your story’s instructions, they will be instantly turned off and be unlikely to interact with your content in the future.
Make sure that your website (or whatever link you add) not only relates to what you were advertising or promoting on the story but that it matches its energy and vibrance. This will make your reader subconsciously trust you and draw them further into your brand. This will increase the likelihood of them becoming attached to your brand, talking about your brand with their friends, and make a step towards building brand loyalty.
8: Regularly Create New Facebook sponsored stories
Simple, but ever so important! Always be creating new content or your stories. No one wants to be met with the same advertisement every time they come across your brand. Be inventive! This will not only capture but keep people’s attention.
Conclusion
Though there is no perfect plan to ensure your Facebook sponsored stories are successful, these 8 design tips will undoubtedly set your business on the pathway to success. Content is key. Ensure that you are always on top of design, communication, and ensure that you are using all the tools you provided by the social media sites you are creating stories for. Good luck with all of your Facebook Sponsored Stories!
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