Facebook: Content Creation, Content Marketing, GrowthHacking And Inbound Marketing

Summary

• FB’s Instant Articles is its entry into a very lucrative, fast growing space in which it has only until now been an indirect player.


• FB’s Instant Articles are genius in that it will allow it to eventually become the Pangaea of publishing.


• If so, FB stands to benefit greatly from creating its Grand Bazaar marketplace of content, content that it can monetize and choke into potential market share.


• If FB sees the results I think it will see it could alter the entire content creation and content marketing space.


• Continue to be long FB as a core position.

Facebook’s (NASDAQ:FB) launch of Instant Articles is a tectonic shift in the way content creation, content marketing, growthhacking, and inbound marketing will be done. At least it will be. It could be much more than that. I’ll explain.

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So, for those unfamiliar FB has created a content distribution engine that is separate from its “normal” newsfeed and paid advertisement mechanism.

FB’s Instant Articles are differentiated (via post borders – National Geographic can surround it’s IA’s with its branded yellow border; branded text – think New York Times, etc.; video auto play; etc.) and more recognizable than any of its other “content”. Instant Articles will be more eye catching than anything else currently available and will load “10X faster than the mobile web (SOURCE: Mike Matas – Instant Articles Project Designer via a May techcrunch.com interview)”.

This is a good thing for those creating the content.

As the popularity of engagement marketing has grown, and the consensus realization that engagement marketing actually works has grown, content and how to deliver that content as was intended by the creator has become a core focus of companies looking to draw prospects into the sales funnel.

Instant Articles will help with that in several ways. As detailed above they’re faster and more responsive, they’re interactive and immersive, they’re simple and scalable, and they allow for the greatest level of non-owned website customization and control. What I mean by that is I can create anything I’d like, assuming spend wasn’t a limiting factor, on my own digital properties but to be able to mass distribute that on a non-owned property was something that was simply unavailable until now. I think this matters.

FB has created Instant Article so that it won’t cause disruption with normal content creation, content marketing, growthhacking practices or data tracking. Instant Articles allow for anything ranging from basic text to video to graphics to be deployed and Instant Articles allows for these to be compatible with existing analytics platforms.

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This is also a good thing for those creating the content and for those pre-Instant Article helping facilitate the content marketing and distribution.

The fact that the data from Instant Articles can still be collected makes this a tool that I think will see wide and growing adoption in time. It might even become the Pangaea of publishing. I really mean that. I also think the maturation of Instant Articles could be the driving force behind many content creating, inbound marketing laggards to get with the program.

This is a good thing for the current Content Creation and Marketing Cartel that includes names like Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), HubSpot (NYSE:HUBS), Marketo (NASDAQ:MKTO), and it might even be a good thing for content creation and housing engines WordPress, Squarespace, Wix.com (NASDAQ:WIX), and the soon to launch The Grid.

Anything that can drive wider spread adoption of anything we’ve talked about facilitated by these channels simply increases the demand for the services. All driven by the endpoint housing unit, FB.

Which is good for FB.

If this evidences itself to be too good for FB, this might be bad for the Cartel above.

FB has invested quite a bit of time and presumably money in getting this right, including trotting out the sacrificial testing lamb Paper in the development process. Many speculate Paper was simply a way to gather intel on an eventual Instant Article like product. I would have to agree.

I don’t think FB has any current intention of monetizing Instant Article outside of what is obvious – creating ad revenue, deepening partnerships with publishers, increasing user count, increasing user time on platform, etc. But, I do think that if FB sees (because it will have access to a great deal of analytics) an opportunity to become the “Pangaea” platform for this type of content – or if it becomes this as a natural consequence of Instant Articles, a way to create a Grand Bazaar of sorts, that it will be forced to at least consider closing the loop on the revenues associated.

Obviously there are billions and billions of dollars of revenue and market cap in being participatory in the general content lifecycle. All the company tickers above are evidence of that. But what if FB decides down the road to acquire (and you can substitute plenty of names into these inputs) WIX and HUBS and host the actual web pages that it could then facilitate the distribution process for via HUBS to Instant Articles? I mean, what if?

What if it then creates an incentive for publishers, obviously not the size of its initial launch partners – let’s be realistic about that, to use its platform either by a price point discount, a deeper integration, an expansive analytics set, etc.? What happens to the space then?

The point to be made here is that FB is sticking its figurative toes in a very, very welcoming body of water. I think that this entry could alter the space eventually if it proves to be a swim that FB likes with the winners being whoever FB decides to acquire and the losers being everybody else.

Don’t’ think it could happen? Think the space is too big overall? So did social network competitors.

I continue to recommend FB as a core position long.

Good luck everybody.

Source: Facebook: Content Creation, Content Marketing, GrowthHacking And Inbound Marketing

Disclosure: The author is long FB, MKTO, HUBS. (More…)The author wrote this article themselves, and it expresses their own opinions. The author is not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). The author has no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Additional disclosure: The author is long GOOG indirectly

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Facebook: Content Creation, Content Marketing, GrowthHacking And Inbound Marketing