Sponsored Stories in Real-Time Ticker

Well, as reported by Mashable this morning, Facebook will now be posting Sponsored Stories ads in the real-time ticker. This is exciting news, as in my experience, Sponsored Stories perform much better than Facebook ads, possibly because some don’t realize they’re actually being advertised to, and are instead viewing organic feed from a friend’s Like.

I do have one thought on these- the Real-Time Ticker. I still have yet to understand its use. With Facebook now giving users the option to see posts by recent stories first, will users even look  at this area of the screen? What if Facebook were to do something like a Promoted Tweet on Facebook, where the Sponsored Story would be placed directly in the newsfeed without appearing to be a an ad? Time will tell. I’m sure this will occur in the future.

– Bryan Nagy