The new ad format is a bigger ad than Facebook has previously had and is an expansion of its Sponsored Stories format, which uses friends interactions with brands in the ad creative.

The ad format will aim to promote a piece of branded content as well as expanding to show which friends have already engaged with the brand or piece of content.

Facebook has also updated the measurement metrics that is presented to the admins of a Facebook Page. The Insights tool will now expand from only showing page Likes and impressions to also include metrics such as Friends of Fans, designed to show the maximum reach; People Talking About This, to show how many people have engaged with the brand across Facebook; and Weekly Total Reach, which combines the total exposure to the brand either via paid or non-paid activity.

The updates come just over a week after the social network launched a raft consumer-facing updates, including new Timeline profile pages and an update to its apps that means content such as video, music or news can be consumed within Facebook