Facebook's Instant Articles sounded like an act of benevolence, but they carried real implications for publishers, ownership and the future of social media promotion.
Instant Articles = instant upgrades
It sounded perfect. With Instant Articles, publishers' content would load up to ten times faster than a mobile web article, with no more dismal gray loading screens and subsequent abandonment by impatient readers. The articles looked sleeker, since publishers were given the same tools an app developer has. There was no need to learn sophisticated techniques, because Facebook paved the way with simple formatting. Users could zoom into photos, comment within articles, and instantly watch embedded videos without even clicking. Any revenue from ads within the article went to the publisher, and publishers who used Facebook's Audience Network kept a large majority of the profits. News organizations also gained access to Facebook's massive audience.
The articles were first proposed as a promotional service, then launched on an experimental basis after partnering with several large publishing corporations, including The New York Times, National Geographic, The Atlantic, NBC News, The Guardian and BBC News. And for companies that did not partner? Facebook said no special treatment would be given to Instant Articles in users' News Feeds.
Or so it would seem
Fancy features and lightspeed loading times were not designed out of concern for a struggling publishing industry. They were implemented to boost Facebook's user experience. The company had already found that speed changes everything. Ultimately, this efficiency meant people would not have to leave Facebook to read news, increasing time on the app and decreasing time on other sites.
While Facebook claimed no special treatment in News Feeds, faster loading times meant increased clicks, views and shares, and therefore more presence than slower articles built on the increasingly archaic mobile web. That pressured other publishers to join for fear of losing ground. In exchange for access to a massive audience, publishers were slowly relinquishing ownership of their brands, as if Facebook needed any more control over web traffic. At the time, studies suggested the overwhelming majority of younger readers were already getting their news from Facebook.
Brand devotion or social media promotion?
Publishers that rely on digital subscriptions had reason to worry. The efficiency and accessibility of Instant Articles could increase a preference for brevity, decreasing the number of deep readers and, in turn, digital subscribers. Another major revenue source, online advertising, was also at risk if Facebook became the main destination for news rather than publishers' own sites.
The publishing partners were not oblivious to the dangers. Several editors and executives voiced apprehension about allowing another company to control the distribution of their own content. Initially, the urgency to either join or fall behind made sense. But over time, once everyone had joined, the competition would even out again, except this time all beneath the umbrella of a single company. Skeptics pointed out that while Facebook might not blatantly censor content, its algorithms had the power to do so indirectly.
A switch to Instant Articles meant publishing companies would no longer adhere to the standard procedures of social media marketing that Facebook had rendered obsolete. Lose ownership, or lose readers? It was an ingenious ultimatum, and one worth understanding before you decide how much of your brand to hand to any single platform.