Facebook Sponsored Story Ads To Appear In The Web News Feed In 2012
Starting in January 2012, Facebook will gradually begin showing Sponsored Stories social ads in the main news feed of the web version of the site, a representative of the company tells us.
Context & Ripple Effects
The feed-ad announcement lands at the end of an unusually busy December for Facebook: the company pushed Timeline to users worldwide on December 15 and extended it to Android and m.facebook.com, began rolling out private messaging between business pages and fans on December 19, and saw its Android app overtake iPhone in daily active users for the first time. Unconfirmed leaked financial documents reported mid-month claimed gushing profits and a large cash hoard — claims Facebook has not confirmed.
Against that backdrop, moving Sponsored Stories out of their existing placements and into the main web news feed starting January 2012 is a monetization step on Facebook's highest-traffic surface, arriving just as the redesigned Timeline feed changes what users see and how often they scroll it.
First-order effects
- Advertisers already buying Sponsored Stories gain access to news feed inventory on the web version of the site beginning in January 2012, putting their social ads in the primary content stream rather than alongside it.
- Users will start encountering paid, brand-associated posts directly inside the feed, raising the stakes for how Facebook balances ad load against engagement on the surface it just redesigned with Timeline.
Second-order effects
- If feed-based Sponsored Stories perform, brands have a stronger incentive to generate the user actions — likes, check-ins, mentions — that social ads amplify, shifting spend toward engagement-driving campaigns rather than plain display buys.
- Rival social platforms face pressure to follow with their own in-stream ad formats, since Facebook would be demonstrating that users tolerate commercial content woven into the feed itself.
Third-order effects
- The move points toward native advertising becoming the default model for social feeds — ads formatted as content, priced against attention in the stream rather than banner real estate — a structure regulators and users would eventually have to reckon with as the line between editorial and paid content thins.
The trend: Social network advertising is migrating from peripheral placements into the content stream itself, with Facebook's feed as the proving ground for native ad formats.