Manchester United, Dove and Burberry are among the first global brands to employ the format, ahead of a universal roll out on 30 March.At its first Marketing Conference in New York yesterday (29 February), Facebook revealed its premium ad service. The first announcement was to update brands’ pages, which are now in line with the Timeline format already seen on consumers’ profile pages.

Facebook has also updated its paid ads format, expanding its Sponsored Stories to mobile, meaning ads will feature in the news feed for mobile users in the same way they do on the desktop version.

Additionally, it announced premium ads would be appearing on its log-out page, which it claims is visited by 37m people every day.

The social network also unveiled an Offers service, allowing brands to share discounts and promotions with their customers. These can either be promoted organically via the news feed or amplified with paid ads (Sponsored Stories). Offers will first launch in the US but a global roll out is expected within weeks.

Speaking at the conference, Mike Hoefflinger, Facebook director of global business marketing, urged brands to make their social campaigns seem less like “ads” and more like “stories” to boost return on investment.

“We want marketers to evolve from creating ads to telling stories to engage consumers on the richest and most customiseable marketing canvas we have ever created for businesses,” he said.

Hoefflinger insists that stories will work for brands, noting that results from trials undertaken by Dr. Pepper, Butterfinger and EA delivered $3 of sales for every $1 spent and performed five to ten times the click-through rate of other ad formats on Facebook.

“Your page is mission control for your business on Facebook,” he said. “The place for your identity and the launchpad for your stories.”

The social network hopes the suite of marketing tools will boost advertising revenues, which was revealed to account for 85% of its $3.71bn (£2.3bn) in 2011.