Intel First Brand To Use Facebook’s Instant Articles

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Intel regularly posts content from iQ, its digital tech-focused publication, and now iQ posts are published on Facebook’s Instant Articles, says Digiday. Facebook created Instant Articles a year ago to make publisher articles load faster, but now, it has given that tool to brands. Intel is the first to take advantage of it by for its posts from iQ, which was founded in 2012 and is translated into 17 languages with editions worldwide.

Instant Articles: a natural fit for Intel IQ

Becky Brown, Intel’s VP of digital marketing and media, says Instant Articles was a natural fit because most of iQ’s reach is from Facebook. Intel’s iQ will compare the engagement rates with those of regular posts to check whether to expand its use or not.

“The whole experience is better for users in general, but we’re taking it a little slow so we don’t overextend ourselves,” Brown said.

The move to publish on Instant Articles resulted from several conversations the chip maker had with Facebook, said Brown. She explained that it expands Intel’s long experience with Facebook, where it has experimented with autoplay video, photo posts and format from dark posts.

“We put a good case forward and how we felt this would be a much better experience for the customer,” she said. “We believe we’re a publisher, based on engagement and feedback we get from articles we publish.”

According to Steve Rubel, chief content strategist for Edelman, on Facebook, publishers still have more advantages over marketers with their organic reach, brand equity and publishing experience.

“One of the huge upsides of sponsored content is the halo of being closely affiliated with the media brands,” he said.

Aims to change its image

In the U.S., iQ is staffed by three Intel employees with help from contractors. According to the chip maker, the U.S. edition posts seven to ten articles a week and reaches 1 to 5 million readers a month, mostly through paid social distribution. The chip maker is trying to shift its perception as a PC maker to a tech brand involved in cloud computing, IoT, and connected devices and aims to get people to associate it with cutting-edge technology.

Intel is the only brand to publish to Instant Articles so far. Facebook has no restrictions but only cares that the organization has an existing publishing operation and posts content which meets its standards on a regular basis. Many marketers have created their own content, but only a few have dedicated publishing operations the way Intel does.

Facebook has created more ways for those that do not publish regularly, like Canvas ads (the multimedia ads that run in the news feed) and sponsored posts via traditional publishers’ Instant Articles.

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