Facebook adverts now in news feeds

Facebook adverts, known as ‘sponsored stories’, have started appearing in users' news feeds, as the service ramps up its commercial activity.

Users will now see these adverts, which appear in the form of ‘stories’ or posts about a product, in their news feeds labelled as ‘featured’.

Marketers can only pay for these adverts to appear in a user’s feed if the user has already ‘liked’ the page. And the advertiser does not have the option to add its own additional message once the post is live.

Facebook is rolling the initiative out around the world and it has already started in the UK.

‘Sponsored stories’ have annoyed certain users and Facebook is currently facing a legal challenge by a group of members who are unhappy about their profiles being used in adverts. Currently if a Facebook user clicks the ‘like’ button on a brand’s page on the site, the social network can use the image and name of that person in an advert endorsing the same company.

A US court, which previously refused to progress a case of several disgruntled Facebook members who were angered by this process, overturned its decision last month.