Sponsored Stories allows advertisers to turns your page updates, checkins, likes, and activity into promotions. The new ads allow brands to leverage activity that already appears in your news feed and turn them into ads on your sidebar, creating greater visibility for the brand. Sponsored Stories is combating their brand mentions getting buried in your news feed information with all of the activity that occurs on your page. 

An important note: The only people who will see an ad with your name and picture are those who would have seen your activity in their news feed already.

Brands know that people are much more likely to purchase based on peer-reviews rather than brand-generated content. Facebook ad testing has already said that Sponsored Stories creates increased ad recall and likeliness to recommend to friends. Seeing that a friend has checked in at Starbucks is a much more compelling reason to visit than a standard advertisement telling a user to go get a cup of coffee.

Sponsored Stories will be available through Facebook’s managed brand advertising services for display on the home page and profile, and soon will become part of the self-serve performance advertising tool for display across the site. Launch partners for the ad unit include Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Levi’s, and Anheuser-Busch, as well as social organizations (RED) and UNICEF. Check it out: