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Social brand marketing service Wildfire has launched a Facebook App focused on creating better content for Facebooks Sponsored Stories.
Facebook launched Sponsored Stories in January and pitched it as a more social and engaging ad format. Brands can turn user activity such as checkins, wall posts and likes into a small advertisement that appears to the right of the Newsfeed. If your friend checks into a Starbucks via Facebook, his or her checkin could make an appearance as a sponsored post the next time you open up your Facebook account.
Weve heard good things about Sponsored Stories, but it does come with issues. The biggest one is that advertisers dont control the content that appears in an advertisement. The problem is that most Sponsored Stories are boring. Seeing someone like the Starbucks Facebook Page is far less engaging than a Facebook status update talking about how much he or she loves the Starbucks Chai Tea Latte.
We suspect thats why Facebook asked Wildfire to develop an app to make Sponsored Stories more engaging. The result is is the Wildfire Storyteller App, a Facebook application focused on turning user feedback and opinions into not just Newsfeed stories, but Sponsored Stories as well.
The application allows brands to add a new tab to their Facebook Pages. On this tab, brands can ask their fans to answer a question or provide an opinion (e.g. Whats your favorite thing about Mashable?). Users can then share those answers with their Facebook friends and post it onto their walls. These wall posts can be customized to include images, videos and descriptions the brand wants to include. A film would be able to share a promotional poster and a description in every single wall post generated from the app.
Thats not what makes this app special, though. The apps real purpose is to generate engaging Sponsored Stories ads from all of those user responses. By asking the right question, brands can create far more engaging social ads. My friends are more likely to click on a Starbucks Sponsored Stories ad if it says I love the Starbucks Chai Tea Latte! than if it just says I checked into my local Starbucks franchise. Storyteller also comes with filtering options so negative comments dont appear in Facebook ads.
Wildfire Interactive CEO Victoria Ransom says that ads generated via the Storyteller app are four times more effective than traditional Sponsored Stories. While the traditional Facebook had has a 3.3% conversion rate, Storyteller-generated ads have a 17% conversion rate. Ransom warns that Sponsored Stories are more effective with larger brands, since smaller brands simply dont have the reach to make Sponsored Stories effective.
What do you think of Wildfires new Storyteller app? Is it something your company would use? Let us know your opinions in the comments.
The user will see something like this when he or she clicks the Storyteller tab. It lets users post feedback, reactions or opinions to their Facebook walls.
Storyteller Admin Panel
Managing a Storyteller campaign is relatively straightforward.
Storyteller Sponsored Stories
Storyteller syncs up with Sponsored Stories. This makes it possible to run ads with engaging content from users, which increases the conversion rate of the ads.
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