Author: Dillon Baker / Source: The Content Strategist Back in 2015, Facebook introduced Instant Articles. It was a seminal moment—or at le
Back in 2015, Facebook introduced Instant Articles. It was a seminal moment—or at least, it was supposed to be. After years of hot takes and hand-wringing, including from yours truly, what was once supposed to revolutionize digital content has instead been something of a dud.
The Guardian, which used to turn every piece it published into an Instant Article, is now completely abandoning the format. According to Digiday, other publishers such as the BBC, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and National Geographic have also scaled back their efforts.
Instant Articles—and other similar formats such as Apple News, Facebook Video, LinkedIn native publishing, and Google AMP—promise speed and user-friendliness in exchange for hosting the content. The result was meant to benefit both sides: Publishers and brands could create better experiences for their audience (and more engagement), while tech companies could keep users on their platforms.
In some ways, the movement has been successful. Google AMP is widely used, though it has come with a few hitches. Despite some early skepticism, many publishers now tout the benefits of Apple News. And native video formats like Facebook Video are all but required to succeed. (When was the last time you saw a publisher link to an external video service on Facebook?)
But what about brands? We argued in the past that brands had little to lose by embracing native publishing. Most of the hesitation from media companies stemmed from ad load and a lack of options for calls-to-action. Brand publishers don’t have to worry about running ads, and many CTAs (such as subscriptions) have been added. Google AMP, Instant Articles, and their ilk require a bit more up-front work than simply posting links, but the potential for…
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