In an update from June of last year, Facebook stated, "Our vision is that over time, an advertiser can come to Facebook and tell us what they are trying to achieve, and our ads tools will automatically suggest the right combination of products to help them achieve it." Facebook just announced that the next step in this series of changes is to eliminate Sponsored Story advertisements on April 9th, 2014.
What is a Sponsored Story anyway? You may have noticed that you see ads in your Facebook newsfeed for brands and products, some of which you are unfamiliar with or have never heard of before. There's an easy explanation for this: your friends like, post, or otherwise interact with a brand that uses Sponsored Stories and those interactions then show up in your News Feed.
Facebook visualizes "social context"
There has been a great deal of controversy and backlash over this which has prompted a change in the way Facebook does 'social advertising'. Don't be mistaken, ads for businesses and products will certainly not disappear entirely from Facebook. However, they will be more neatly integrated and streamlined to fit Facebook's idea of "social context".
What implications will this have on traffic to brand pages and brand marketing on Facebook? It's definitely a hot topic everyone seems to have an opinion about. Although Facebook certainly isn't cutting ties with advertising all-together, its users will certainly enjoy more "natural" interactions and experiences.
This post originally appeared on the Engagor blog.