Summary: Instant Articles are a new way for publishers to create “fast, interactive articles on Facebook”.<br> Speed has become a key ingredient in today’s social age. The terms engagement, responsiveness and instant are dominating the space. People seem to be obsessed with likes, shares and comments. Messages are sent to brands without proper reflection. <br> If you manage to pause for a second, you might ponder upon the following questions:<br> Does speed trump thinking?<br> Does speed trump etiquette and integrity?<br> Technology has made it easier for individuals to communicate with businesses from all over the world. No matter what size your business is, or what industry you’re in, if you have a Facebook account, people can message you. It’s that simple.<br> Let’s have a quick look at consumer behavior, shall we?<br> By now we know that people…<br> <br> * like to hang out on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Co.<br> * prefer to stay logged in on all the social platforms<br> * consume more and more content via their mobile phones<br> * want fast access to information whether that’s video, audio or in a written format<br> <br> What about the providers? What do companies like Facebook, Twitter and Co. want?<br> For one, they want to keep users in their environment. The more you stay in the Facebook environment, the more you’re exposed to content and ads provided by Facebook. The likelihood of you purchasing something increases.<br> Therefore, building a seamless user experience has become crucial to all these social platforms. And this is where Facebook Instant Articles come to play.<br> Content Marketing is King<br> A lot of people misleadingly think that content marketing equals blogging. Nothing could be further from the truth. Video is content marketing. Audio is content marketing. Podcasting is content marketing. Articles and press releases are content marketing.<br> Facebook knows about the power of content marketing and continues to invest heavily into video, audio and written content. Integration is key, and if you look at how Mark Zuckerberg runs his business, you understand why cross-channel thinking has helped him build an empire. <br> At this year’s Facebook Developer Conference F8, Mark Zuckerberg announced Instant Articles to being rolled out to all publishers. Previously, only a select few – mainly large media companies such as for e.g. National Geographic or the BBC could publish their articles on Facebook.<br> The good news:<br> As of April, any publisher can publish Instant Articles.<br> What are Facebook Instant Articles?<br> Instant Articles allows publishers to share their blog posts on Facebook by delivering a fast and immersive reading experience for users who access your articles from a mobile device by clicking a link. The content loads super fast.<br> On top of that, publishers can use Instant Articles for monetization purposes.<br> Here’s where you can sign up for Instant Articles:<br> <a style="color: #3366ff;" href="https://instantarticles.fb.com/" target="_blank">https://instantarticles.fb.com/</a><br> How to Become a Publisher on Facebook in Three Steps<br> 1. Prepare At Least 50 High-Quality Articles AKA Blog Posts<br> Before you start the Instant Articles process, make sure you have at least 50 quality blog posts on your website. Yes, 50 is a must, a requirement from Facebook. However, to be on the safe side, I recommend you have at least 60 high-quality articles in place.<br> And here’s why:<br> For one, you might encounter some heavy coding issues on the Facebook side, or your articles won’t display the way you’d like them to and are requested by Facebook. This is often the case when you use several different media sources in one blog post such as slideshows, a podcast player, an embedded video, all kinds of social share buttons etc.
