Still sticking through old methods of Facebook advertisement to boost sales and reach? Well here is good news for all businesses, Facebook has launched a new method through which people can connect from Story Ads to Messenger and initiate a conversation.

With Stories gaining growth over Facebook, the platform decided to initiate better options for businesses as well as users to use Facebook Ads and have as much business as they can have. Therefore they introduced a Call To Action option direct through Story Ads.

Most of the businesses are using the option of Story Advertisements over Facebook as it is the most creative option for businesses to create and advertise their products and attract customers just by visuals in a short and sweet manner.

What Are Story Advertisements?

 People being almost online over Facebook have filed the platform with so many advertising options so that every type of business whether big or small can relate to the options and use the platform to advertise themselves according to the needs and budget.

With times and options, Facebook launched the option of Story Advertisements. This option was launched by Facebook in October 2017. The option provided features for businesses to publish their Ads over Facebook’s NewsFeed as well as stories. Before Facebook, the story option was launched over Instagram in January 2017 and then the company started testing them for Facebook.

The Facebook stories were decided and emphasized after the success of Instagram Stories. The features of Facebook Ads are mostly similar to Instagram Stories. The Facebook Story Advertisements are immersive full- screen fast ads that display for 15 seconds and along with this, the feature offers 5-second image ads, and 45-second (aggregate) Carousel ads.

It also includes music and GIFs too to make the stories look more attractive, lately, GIFs are the most in trend thing and the businesses are finding a way to encourage and boost their products by spending little and getting a high amount of response.

This small duration advertisement method has been a great success with over 300 million daily users of Story over Facebook.

And Businesses have been shifting their advertising budget from Facebook and Instagram Feeds to Facebook and Instagram Stories ads due to the lower costs offered over stories and better results.

The format was first tested with KFC UK and they reported that Facebook Stories Ads campaigns delivered a 33% lower Cost Per View (CPV) and a 19% lower Cost Per Impression (CPI) to them. The brand said that the ad units allowed them to reach more people at a lower cost, without sacrificing targeting control and generating better results without any hassle.

How Are Facebook Story Advertisements Helpful?

The surveys conducted came to a conclusion that more than half of people surveyed said that they made more online purchases in the influence of seeing stories and 34% said they went to a store to look for a product they had seen in stories ads.

This states that story ads have not only helped businesses to gain online sales as well as offline sales too.

Along with time, Facebook has grown immensely and the Story Ad feature gained growth within a few years. Being launched in 2017, the viewers who view stories over Facebook have turned out to be huge providing a better option to businesses. Facebook Story Ad feature has changed the sharing and communicating method of traditional sharing on the News Feed towards itself.

Not only this, the Facebook stories have helped businesses by increasing their sales through the mouth; that means people have talked to their friends or family after seeing a product in story ads and 38% of people have claimed this according to surveys. 

At Facebook’s conference, the Chief Product Officer Chris Cox revealed how Stories content will surpass News Feed sharing in 2019 and it has shown a lot of difference – Stories’ growth rate has increased (up to over 800% since 2016).

Facebook is flexible on Story adoption from all around the world. Facebook took an initiative to make Stories more attractive and relatable is that they sent teams across the world to get to know about how people use Facebook, what are their limitations in context to geographical and technological factors. And for signaling the international focus, Facebook developed country-specific slang Story Filters for 10 different countries including Ireland and Canada.

Since Snapchat introduced the stories option in 2013, the trend has taken over the world super quickly and is not going to stop anytime soon. Stories are where people share and discover content they care about in fast and interactive ways.

In recent studies, it is found that 68% of people say that they on average use 3  apps to just view stories regularly, and 63% of people have plans to use stories more in the future giving Facebook the desired hype and reach as the social media platform is offering the story option. With the reach of Facebook Story, it has been a great option for businesses to convey short messages about their products and services.

Businesses can also use stories as part of Facebook Events, which can help people who can’t attend something in person feel as if they are there and feel more loyal towards businesses.

Another benefit of Facebook Stories is that their exhaustibility creates a sense of urgency. With a regular post, a person might view it while scrolling and can easily return later if they want. Stories get removed after 24 hours, people are much more likely to tune in if they’re interested in order to avoid missing out and creating instant results for businesses.

If the businesses are deciding to launch a new product, an event or a sale, posting to Stories can give people minute by minute updates in a strategic approach and can increase the interest rates of potential customers (as compared in reference to authentic medium of Facebook live).  Facebook Live is a constant stream and businesses cannot upload a few parts of details of the products but the new stories feature will be able to show few images that can be strategically posted by the company and they can give a teaser to the audiences about the new upcoming things.

 Facebook has over 467 million users which are more than Snapchat and Instagram combined together. That means that these stories have the potential to hit a bigger market and that too with less money expenditure.  

The businesses can release special promotions, sales, and announcements without clustering profiles or other people’s news feeds who are not interested.  The interested customers will watch the story and uninterested individuals will not have to worry about hiding constant updates from their news feed giving businesses a better aspect of the interested customers.

And with various options of Ads over stories, Facebook decided to provide other options to businesses to include a Call To Action button over their stories itself so that customers do not have to look through the profiles of businesses to contact them.

What Is Call To Action?

The Call To Button provides the users with an option to take any action that is important for businesses, such as booking appointments or shopping on the website. The businesses can directly mention it over their posts and can redirect people to the services.

The feature rolled out in 2014 in order to provide more easy access to both businesses and customers so that they can engage in direct conversations and shop directly without searching about businesses from their Facebook pages.

The Call to Action (CTA) button’s main objective is to bring a business’ most important objective to the front of its Facebook appearance. Call To Action button links to any destination whether on or off Facebook that matches businesses’ goals.

For example –if businesses add a Call To Action button of “Shop Now” to their pages, and the users click it they will be encouraged to shop.

The businesses can select from the mentioned categories as what kind of Call To Action button suits their business and can choose that option accordingly. The button contains 7 options.

The options are as follows:

• Book Now
• Contact Us
• Use App
• Play Game
• Shop Now
• Sign Up
• Watch Video

Each of the options serves different objectives and users can select them according to their preferences and business type.

The following describes every type of Call To Action options.

Book Now

• Objective: The businesses want people to schedule appointments or make reservations through the page, then they can use the option of Book Now.
• Call To Action Options: Book Now

Contact

• Objective: This option is for businesses who want to increase engagement over their pages and want people to contact them on Facebook Messenger or through any other communication medium such as Email or phone.
• Call To Action Options: Call Now, Contact us, Send Email, Send Message or Sign Up.

Download

• Objective: The businesses want customers to download their Applications or their games.
• Call To Action Options: Play Game or Use App

Learn

• Objective: The businesses wish that people should watch an informational video or read about their businesses on their websites. This option is basically used to create Brand Awareness.
• Call To Action Options: Learn More or Watch Video

Shop

• Objective: this is preferred for businesses to make customers shop on their websites or applications and generate online sales or even offline sales. 
• Call To Action Options: See Offers or Shop Now.

How Is Call To Action Helpful?

Brands can easily implement any one of the CTA buttons to fulfill their set of objectives and gain maximum profits from it. Each Call To Action plays an important role and fulfills the desired objectives if it is used wisely and with relevancy so that this does not affect the users’ Facebook using methods and is somehow connected with the communication with the social page of businesses.

The Call To Action button automatically increases the rate of conversion. Because if businesses add a very easy to use Call To Action button in their respective Facebook pages, then visitors of the page get direct access to products and or services or whatever the businesses want as the conversion, in just click of a button.

So it establishes an easy bridge between the visitors with businesses’ offerings and easier communication that can create a huge amount of conversions.

The businesses can put up with any method of conversion, be it email newsletter subscribers, getting more sales or having a large number of appointments. The ultimate goal tends to be the same that is more and more conversion through Facebook Ads.

But the problem arises with the processes of conversions, they have always been a long headache for everyone. Making it short and easy to access is what every business dreams of and it is resolved by Call To Action feature over the platform.

For example – If a visitor for the first time comes across a shopping page and wants to go through their product catalog, and he/she gets to click a Call To Action Button from Facebook Page, then the entire process becomes swifter and easier for both businesses and users.  

In the same situation if that visitor doesn’t find any easier access for communication or catalogs to shop from the page, then it’s guaranteed that during the search half of the interest of that person will be gone.

So, easier is better both for businesses as well as users.

Call To Action Button for Facebook Stories

With the benefits of facebook Stories and Call To Action Button, Facebook decided to introduce Call To action Button for stories as well.

Businesses that want more and more marketing options for their Facebook stories have loved this tremendous update. This gave them another way to drive action through the biggest Social Media Platform.

When businesses create Story Ads for their Facebook Page, they will witness the option to add a Call To Action sticker. The sticker suggestions are based on the Call To Action options that businesses have already featured upon their respective pages. For instance – a business puts up a Call To Action option of “Shop Now” or “Call Now” on their Facebook Pages, then the business can even add the Call To Action sticker over the story too. The potential customers can then tap the Call To Action directly through the story.

The great benefit this feature offers is that it has a very low bar for creation. Any kind of business whether big or small can access the feature easily, this gives an opportunity to every kind of business for its growth. This allows small businesses to promote themselves in a manner that might bring them more reachable and provide them growth in comparison to their competitors.

By adding Call-To-Action buttons to Facebook Stories for Pages, the businesses now have time to engage the people and Pages that follow their Facebook Stories in providing them with an easier option to communicate with businesses and users can easily know about the variety of products and services they are offering.

The feature is particularly mobile – centered approach which is a good way to reach more and more people as most of the users of Facebook log in through their mobiles and it helps businesses to reach more and more people conveniently.

The new feature displays the CTA options available in the main header of Business Pages.

The option can be a big benefit for the businesses as it provides a short and easy manner to communicate with potential customers and is interactive in many ways, however the the Story Ads do not have a particular option to be published and users need to create ads which will run over NewsFeed as well. So the users need to publish a normal ad and can include the option in the ads. The Call To Action feature for Story Ads is a great feature for businesses to communicate with their audiences through an interactive platform without any hassle and the interested customers also have an easy access to their favorite brands and businesses as Facebook NewsFeed is mostly occupied with Ads and the customers can not interact with businesses easily.

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