Taboola, the discovery platform, today announced the beta of Taboola Stories, a new way for publishers to engage readers with the familiar captivating “stories” format that is seen on many forms of social media.
With the likes of Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook all having story features, it has become an amazing way for people to find the news they care about. With companies like Taboola now jumping on the bandwagon, it will be interesting to see how many more adopt the idea in order to drive consumer interest.
Publishers can embed Taboola Stories within their homepages and articles, presenting readers with constantly updated recommendations that, once selected, launch vertical, mobile-friendly stories that cycle automatically. Taboola’s Stories product also represents an exciting opportunity for brand advertisers to reach consumers in new premium and impactful environments.
How do ‘Stories’ work?
Stories are an excellent feature for enabling publishers to engage their readers, as they can provide them with the content they are enjoying most, significantly increasing the time people spend on their sites.
In addition, Taboola’s new ‘Story’ feature opens up new ways for publishers to drive revenue by tapping into the growing popularity of mobile-friendly vertical formats that have become a substantial part of advertiser’s social budgets today.
With audiences becoming more and more focused on short-form and quick ways of receiving information, stories are a great way for them to stay up-to-date with the things they care about, even when they’re on the move or are short of time.
How will Taboola Stories benefit users?
Offering a brand new reading experience, Taboola Stories combines simplicity, entertainment and usability. With it, readers have a new way to visually discover related topics to the content they are already on. Taboola Stories automatically cycle through article summaries, so readers can quickly skip to new content and ensure they never miss relevant stories.
In the same way as Taboola Feed, Taboola Stories leverages the same recommendation engine, a personalised stream of article and video content that users might be interested in, which is used by more than 9,000 of the world’s top publishers. It is powered by more than a decade of investment by Taboola in Artificial Intelligence, as well as data from readership of more than 500 million daily active users.
Adam Singolda, CEO at Taboola, said: “We’re combining the best of two worlds, making it easier than ever for publishers to keep readers engaged and allowing readers to discover more content and promoted recommendations by advertisers they may like.
“Taboola Stories is a big leap forward in the flexibility we’ve given to publishers, and their abilities to interact with readers. We’re fortunate to have spent 13 years innovating to deliver more opportunities for publishers to develop closer relationships with readers and drive more engagement, and revenue in the process. Compared to story-driven formats on traditional social media platforms, Taboola Stories offer similar formats, but side-by-side to premium, editorial content that exists in the open web.”
Creating a story option on your platform could be a great way to encourage more use, as people will be used to ingesting news and information more quickly than usual, leading them to check and therefore engage with the platform more often.