Everyone’s Facebook feed is going to get a little more interesting now that the social media giant is allowing business pages the option of creating organic Canvas-style posts.
We first wrote about Canvas posts in March 2016 when Facebook introduced them as a type of ad unit for businesses. Users are able to create a multi-page, fully immersive ad experience for viewers that can include pictures, in-line video, text, photo carousels, call-to-action-buttons, and panoramic photos that people can swipe or tilt around to see more. These easy-to-make ads require no website building experience and no coding is required.
When the option of Canvas ads was added to Facebook earlier this year, users could only build them as paid advertisements on the platform. However, as of June 22, 2016, they will now be available as an organic post option, meaning there will be no advertising cost required for Facebook business page owners to display them on their page.
Canvases provide an immersive experience for people and a flexible creative space for Facebook pages. For small business owners, these free Canvases can be a way to create visually interesting, highly shareable content without having to build new pages on their website. They also load quickly since they are housed on Facebook (up to 10x quicker than a typical mobile web page, according to the social site), and encourage users to spend more time on Facebook business pages.
