Facebook is undoubtedly the best social media channel in the world and to prove its worth, the platform has launched necessary updates time and again. This time, it has brought something extraordinary for people who are making money online, i.e. bloggers and other social media influencers, who are always looking for new ways to drive more traffic and earn money from social media channels.
Now without beating about the bush, let me tell you that Facebook has introduced Instant Articles for WordPress. This feature is new to bloggers, webmasters and general users. The feature has both good and bad things for webmasters. The good thing is that it helps you generate more traffic from this amazing social media platform and the bad one is that you cannot show your widgets or inbox as you are doing now. To make the most of this feature, you should quickly integrate it after reading this information.
So what is Facebook Instant Article, by the way?
By launching this Instant Article feature, Facebook solves the problem of slow loading of articles. It is an HTML5 document optimized for superior mobile performance, storytelling competence, branded design, and tailored visual display. After integrating Instant Articles on your website or blog, users can check instant icon whenever they see your shared articles on Facebook. The icon tells users that it is an instant article and it will be loaded on the app or browser quickly. Check the instant article icon below:
This feature has many merits and demerits, but thankfully, merits have outnumbered their counterparts. One reason experts cite for its potential success is that there is tremendous scope and opportunity in countries like India, Brazil, Philippines, and others as these countries face the problem of slow Internet speed issues. Watch the video and you will get to know how Instant Articles will look on a smart device:
Let’s check how you can integrate Instant Articles for a WordPress blog.
Setup Facebook Instant Articles on WordPress:
It is advisable to read complete information (as mentioned below) on Instant Articles and then watch the video. While you are watching video, you should start integrating Instant Articles on your WordPress website. It will hardly take 15 minutes of yours and in 24 hours, Instant Articles should be live for your WordPress site. So start following the guide.
Step 1. First off, log in to your Facebook account.
Step 2. Next, go to the Instant Articles signup page.
Step 3. Click on Signup button.
You will be landed on the next page from where you can choose Facebook page; this is where you can enable Instant Articles tool.
Choose the page and then click on “Enable Instant Articles”.
Your Instant Articles for Page will be enabled. Now you need to configure Instant Articles.
Once Instant Articles for a page is enabled, you have got the ticket to configuration page: click on Page Settings and then click on Instant Articles.
Please take care of following things:
Step 1. First, claim your URL.
Step 2. Add RSS feed (If you are using platforms other than WordPress, you should follow this link to configure Instant Articles).
Step3. Now submit for the review.
Once you follow all the above three steps carefully, you should be able to configure Instant Articles; if in case you are facing any problem, go back to the video and find the solution. The entire process is not a rocket science, and therefore, any lay user will be able to set up Instant Articles feature.
Click on Claim your URL (this will present a Meta tag which you need to add under your Website <head> tag. As an alternative, you can edit your header.php file.
After adding the Meta tag, remove WordPress cache. Click on Claim URL now and you will see a success message:
Next is to set up RSS feed for Instant Articles, which will be done with the help of official WordPress plug-in for Facebook Instant Articles.
RSS Feed & Official Facebook Instant articles plug-in:
Facebook has joined hands with some publishing and analytics platforms to make it easy for bloggers to create and release Instant Articles. You need to install Official Facebook Instant Article WordPress plug-in. Facebook, Automattic & other developers are behind the development of this plug-in. Once the plug-in is activated, a new plug-in is generated and now you can check it by adding/feed/instant-articles to your domain name. So in this case, it was:
http://indabaa.com/feed/instant-articles
Now go to your Facebook page Instant Article setting and add this RSS feed to “Production RSS feed” area (check the screenshot given below).
Now click on Save button and then & now finish the last few things.
Configuring the FB instant article WordPress plug-in:
Now you are required to enter Facebook App ID and App Secret. You need to create a Facebook app which is quite simple. Just follow a few easy steps and you are done.
Step 1. Open this page and click on Add a new app.
Step 2. Choose website as the option on pop-up.
Step 3. Click on Create App ID
On the next page, type in your website URL without HTTP://
Step 4. Click on Next
Step 5. Now click on Skip quick start guide.
You will see your App ID and App Secret on the next page.
Don’t forget to make your app live.
Step 6. Click on App review.
Step 7. Toggle to Yes and your app will go live.
Now go back to Facebook Instant Article WordPress plug-in Settings.
Step 8. Copy the App ID & App secret to WordPress plug-in.
Step 9. Upon clicking Next, you can see Login with Facebook option.
Step 10. Confirm your login and choose your Facebook page from the drop-down menu.
Step 11. Click on Next and you are done. The plug-in is configured & now you should post articles for review.
Step 12. Before you finish the final submit for review, click on Style and click on default style:
Step 13. Website logo is compulsory to add. Note that your website logo should be in size of 690*132 Px.
Please note that in absence of logo, a blank canvas of size of 690*132 can be uploaded. You can create this canvas using any image editor too.
Click on Save and Done when the logo is uploaded.
Now your patience is tested as you need to upload 10 posts for review. You can follow this:
Open your WordPress dashboard.
Open 10 previously published blog posts in edit mode.
Save all the blog posts and those articles will be sent to your Facebook Instant Articles RSS feed.
Post this, you should be able to upload your articles for review.
Bloggers are normally apprehensive of one thing: how to make money out of articles published through Facebook Instant Articles? Chillax guys! You can earn 100% revenue generated by your articles with the help of Facebook audience network opened by Facebook. Check this official explanation on FB Audience Network:
Publishers can directly sell and deliver banner ads, video ads (click to play or sound off), and animated ads containing HTML5, Javascript or CSS (provided the ads do not expand, collapse or any block content). Publishers can also monetize through the Facebook Audience Network, delivering high value, relevant and engaging ads from over 3 million advertisers on Facebook.
Audience Network provides publishers and developers with engaging, high performing ad units backed by Facebook’s 3 million advertisers. Audience Network extends the reach of Facebook campaigns beyond Facebook, and provides publishers a way to monetize their content with relevant, better-targeted ads and innovative native ad formats.
Upon clicking on get started, Facebook will provide you the link for audience network dashboard. Go through the information to configure your payment option. If you fail to update your payment option, Facebook will discontinue service ads after you reached $100
Your audience network application will be approved within five odd minutes.
Now, what are you waiting for? Start configuring this Facebook Instant Articles for your WordPress website. We are waiting for your feedback. Connect with us on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter.
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