Advertisement

Facebook is testing sticker ads in Stories

It’s giving creators more ways to monetize their audiences.

Facebook is offering creators more options to make money from their audiences. One method it’s testing is a way to make bank from Stories. Some creators will be able to plug ads that look similar to stickers into their Stories and they'll get a cut of ad revenue. For instance, creators might plug local businesses with a sticker while they're on trips.

Only a small number of creators have access to this option during the initial test, but Facebook hopes to roll out the feature in the near future. It also plans to enable the feature for all short-form videos.

Elsewhere, Facebook is bringing mid-roll ads to shorter videos. Until now, ads were only present in videos that were at least three minutes long. You may start to see ads in videos that run for only a minute. Videos lasting between one and three minutes can have ads 30 seconds in. Ads can appear in longer videos after 45 seconds, down from one minute.

Pages will only be able to run ads on shorter videos if they meet certain requirements, like having 600,000 minutes of total watch time in the previous 60 days and at least five active video uploads. Live video creators additionally need to have at least 60,000 minutes of live watch time over the same period to qualify for ads in their streams.

Stars and virtual gifts in Facebook live streams
Facebook

Facebook is also expanding paid live events to another 24 countries and switching on fan subscriptions in 10 more regions. In addition, it's spending $7 million to promote the Stars virtual tipping currency. As with Twitch Bits, users can send these to creators. Facebook will be giving away Stars during certain live streams. Comments that users send with Stars will be more prominently displayed on streams. You'll be able to send virtual gifts to creators too.

Stars will be available in more markets, and you can check on a creator support site whether your Page is eligible. Soon, Facebook will expand Stars beyond live streams by testing them in on-demand videos. Meanwhile, Facebook has updated the minimum eligibility criteria for gaming creators to become partners and unlock more features and monetization options.