In the hopes of populating Facebook Stories with active users, the platform is opening the feature to brands, publishers, athletes, non-profits, and celebrities.

Ghost town to gain new residence

Since its debut, Facebook Stories has received very little activity, nothing compared to Snapchat Stories or even its Instagram subsidiary. The social network giant hopes high budget video may be the answer.

Facebook Product Manager Amy Sun said Facebook have been listening to its community, and working to make Stories work with big business through Pages as efficiently as possible.

In the coming months, it will soon be possible for companies to use Pages to create promotional Stories to share with existing followers.

Instagram inspires its parent

Stories has seen a great deal of success through Instagram, but that success has yet to transfer to Facebook.

Facebook Stories posted through Pages will be visible to followers but won’t show up on News Feed unless posted there as well, and will disappear in 24 hours, like any other Story.

Facebook has yet to release metrics on Stories as it likely has little to brag about, something it hopes to improve in opening the gates to brands.

Whether or not opening to any brand willing to pay will foster more engagement, or become bombastic advertisement, will be left up for the users to judge.

Do you think opening up Stories to brands will bring in users or potentially push them away? Give us your thoughts in the comments below.