Our friends at publications ask us about Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Web Stories / Visual Stories all the time, and we do our best to educate them on the advantages of Open Web Stories. So, we’d also like to take a moment to walk other publishers, brands, and creators through what exactly do Google AMP Stories mean for your business or publication.
What is Google’s AMP project?
Two years ago, Google, the world’s pre-eminent technology behemoth, kicked off an open-source HTML technology framework — Accelerated Mobile Pages — aimed at “near instantaneous loading, multi-platform content distribution, that will eventually lead to placement on Google mobile properties,” and offering an alternative to closed-platform news dissemination formats, Apple News and Facebook Instant Articles.
So far, so good. If mobile engagement because of near instantaneous fast-loading mobile pages is your goal, then you have found the right technology. Visual storytelling is the ultimate goal for the AMP Project, and this results in three distinct areas that Google AMP wishes to innovate around:
- AMP Websites
- Web Stories
- AMP Ads
- AMP Email
In addition, there are three big audiences for Google AMP — businesses, products and publishers — for starters. As you can tell from our mission, here at Firework, we are solely focused on evangelizing with publishers, brands and creators, the power of an open web that we share with Google. And we believe that the most compelling way to do that is through Web Stories.
Why businesses are moving to Google AMP
This is an oft-repeated topic that has been covered extensively by researchers like Neil Patel, but we believe that we are seeing an exodus from brands adopting AMP stories on the mobile web, given the fact that users choose apps over websites nearly 77% of the time spent. Here are three simple reasons why all brands and businesses should give AMP Stories a try:
1. Innovation matters
In competitive markets, chances are your competition is already experimenting with Google AMP Stories, and showing up on fast loading mobile pages ahead of you. At the very least, it’s a chance for any brand or business to level the playing field with your competition today.
2. Brands thrive on storytelling
If you take a look at the biggest, longest living brands in the world (take Nike or Apple), you’ll recognize that what separates the great brands from the rest is storytelling. Jason Holland, President Global Business at Firework, did a deep-dive into why storytelling matters and how web stories lets you tell the most engaging story to your audience.
3. Visual > text
All viewers are visual animals first, and reading is an acquired taste. The easiest way to reach your audience is through images, stories and videos, and the open web is finally at the moment where it’s doable with technological innovation like AMP, making it trivial whether you are a small business owner or a major brand while leveling the playing field.
4. SEO is the global currency of business
The most important way that your audience finds you is by searching the open web, and building a strong presence on Google AMP complements your search engine optimization strategy
We hope this helps present a basic rationale for why every business and brand should be giving Google AMP Web Stories, a closer look. And with Google’s recent announcements in this space, they continue to make that investment in AMP technology, almost trivial.
Why publishers should take Google AMP seriously
Leading publishers, including CNN, Washington Post, and National Geographic among others, have started taking Google AMP seriously with stellar results.
Shifting audience tastes
As audiences gravitate to the Stories format across social platforms, here’s a sampling of the most recent ones, and short videos, publishers might want to give their readers a more compelling visual experience.
Engagement > readership
Increased engagement because of native video stories only increases the readership, now viewership, of your channels. It levels the playing field between text-only publications to now adopt a presence in short videos on the open web.
We will be sharing a more in-depth look at how to embrace this new AMP technology for publishers.
Learn more about web stories & storytelling
We’d love to hear from you on topics you’d love to hear about on modern publishing. Feel free to leave us a comment or say “Hi” on LinkedIn @fireworkhq.
