At the beginning of the year, Facebook announced Sponsored Stories. In February the solution became available for global self-service customers, similar to Facebook ads.

This morning I watched a live Webinar on the Facebook Marketing Solutions page to get more information about the opportunity for hoteliers. To summarize, Facebook Sponsored Stories allow businesses to amplify actions that your fans (or you) take around your page. For example, when I ‘like’ a business page today, my friends might see that activity in their feed. But, with Sponsored Stories, the likelihood that my friends will see my activity goes way up since the ‘story’ will run on the right side of the page, versus simply showing up in the feed.

There are four types of sponsored stories.

1. Page Likes – When people like your page
2. App Interactions – When people interact with an application on your page
3. Check-ins – When people check-in to your hotel/restaurant/bar etc
4. Page Posts – When you update the status of your page

For businesses with smaller fan bases, Facebook suggests you use sponsored stories in conjunction with ads. Ads can help get you more ‘likes’ and Sponsored Stories can help amplify those likes to drive more people to your page.

Facebook has published a guide for getting started with Sponsored Stories here.