Social Media Stories and
Social Media Marketing Campaigns
Introduction:
Increasing readership and increasing the results from your social media campaigns are essential. Therefore, we have compiled this article on the importance of using stories in your social media marketing campaigns.
The Importance of Social Media Stories
[1]Storytelling is the very core of an excellent social and content strategy. It enables us to build a narrative and connect deeper with friends, customers and connections. Nearly all social platforms recognize this and now have their iteration of tools for telling social media stories.
Facebook Stories (launching in Ireland) is the latest in a list that includes Snapchat Stories, Instagram Stories, Messenger Day and Twitter Moments, to name a few.
While people tend to focus on platforms copying each other, the most important is for all media to have this functionality.
While all may have it to varying degrees, whoever gives users the best tools to tell stories will win, which the data seems to be supporting.
Social Media Stories over Social Media Posts
Social media has always revolved around snapshots, those moments in time we’ve captured and shared with our friends.
Personal timelines go some way toward organizing these, but the news feed remains where people keep up to date.
This is also where algorithms come into play, which tends to kill a narrative. As a result, elements of the Story might appear out of order – which is fine if you’re Tarantino, but not if you’re an individual or a brand.
While you would expect that if we reacted to one thing we found interesting, we might see more of it, there’s not necessarily a guarantee that this will happen in order, if at all.
Stories fix these challenges by stringing together the narrative and keeping it moving.
Ease of Use and Access is Key
Recent research shows that Instagram stories slowed the growth of Snapchat’s play after it launched, mainly due to its scale of users already familiar with the platform and its ease of use by comparison to Snapchat.
Similarly, Twitter’s much-hyped Moments feature has just been removed from the main navigation in their app. I believe to be symptomatic of them keeping it out of the hands of users for too long – by the time they could create their Moments. Most were finding better ways to do it elsewhere. That said, it remains an essential tool in curating relevance from the noise.
Facebook has scale already, which is where Instagram also had an advantage. All platforms have their own demographic and user behaviours that will influence the types of stories that will be told and how the tools will work.
[2]Social Media Stories: The Growth Opportunity Your Brand Don’t Want To Miss
Like any PR tactic, tracking is pivotal to understanding how and why it is working and, of course, for measuring success.
From Sam Olmstead:
Social media Stories work to improve PR.
However, Stories, and social media as a whole, are only one aspect of PR.
When talking about the relationship between social media and PR, there are some essential questions to ask:
- Who is posting about the company?
- Does the social media post or poster reflect the company’s mission, values, and messaging?
- Can I track the data behind the social media post?
If Kim Kardashian, with her 101 million Instagram followers, posts a story about your company, you’ll get a much larger response than if the average Joe does.
But, in this example, does she represent your company and brand?
Mismatched messaging does poorly regardless of who delivers it.
If your company is directly posting Stories, this increases the direct communication you have with your customers.
However, it’s not very useful if you can’t track that data or allow others to find you.
In this instance, Instagram
Stories take the edge over Snapchat Stories.
On Instagram, companies can put a hashtag on the stories which can be read and followed.
Finding the ROI of Stories is all about tracking the data.
In Snapchat, companies can make custom geo-filters and track who has used those filters.
Instagram doesn’t yet have this capability.
However, Instagram allows companies to use hashtags and link to a more robust profile with website information (Instagram homepage).
Stories are just one more way to communicate with your customers.
Companies should use stories as long as they understand how to track the results.
Similarly, Anthony Baldini also speaks to ROI:
The return on investment of using Stories is that profiles can build loyalty through content without flooding a feed.
Because users must select to view a Story, as opposed to being forced to see the content when scrolling the main feed, users are arguably more receptive to the messages conveyed through Story clips.
Unlike Snapchat or Facebook, which only show how many people viewed your content, Instagram “Stories” also reveal which users saw each Story, thus highlighting a list of active followers for you to engage with.
[3]Benefits of Social Media Stories
The Stories function. Most social media platforms have them. It began with Snapchat, followed by Instagram and then Facebook. Now, it’s Twitter’s turn.
Earlier this week, Twitter announced they would be launching a new Stories format called ‘Fleets.’ Currently being tested in Brazil, the function is expected to roll out to other countries if proven successful.
The name Fleets is derived from ‘fleeting thoughts,’ and unlike standard tweets, Fleets will disappear after 24 hours and cannot receive retweets, likes and public replies. Instead, they can only be reacted to through the use of direct messages. In addition, the disappearing tweets can only be viewed by tapping on a user’s profile picture. Although seemingly similar to the usual Stories format, Fleets have a few differences, making the experience more focused on gaining an insight into the user’s thoughts.
No Need to Beat the Algorithm
Instagram, in particular, is notoriously known for its unbeatable algorithm. However, using the Stories feature across all social media platforms means you don’t have to ‘beat’ any tricky algorithms by posting at certain times of the day or with an endless stream of hashtags.
This feature is sat at the very top of the home feed on both Facebook and Instagram, meaning it gets seen before any main feed posts and pictures. Add another frame to the Story to be bumped to the front! Although short-lived and disappear after just 24 hours, the Stories function allows you to post as many structures as you’d like, providing zero restrictions in terms of content length.
Increased Engagement
The use of Stories helps to maintain and increase engagement with followers and consumers. In addition, the feature allows brands and influencers to communicate without interrupting their main feed or timeline.
Stories allow you to engage with followers in a completely different way. Rather than relying on likes and comments for feedback, Stories will enable you to get personal with your audience. Share your location, tag other users, and share gifs, stickers, polls, and question submission boxes. All of these are a great way to interact with followers on a more personal level. You can also get creative with a variety of text and font styles, as well as backgrounds, without disrupting the theme of your primary grid. Now, many brands are using the Stories feature to collaborate on sponsored posts with influencers.
Five hundred million accounts use Instagram Stories every day – yep, you’ve read that right! With 86.6% of Instagrammers posting to Instagram Stories and brands using main posts and Stories almost equally, features like this could be the way forwards to help boost engagement.
Increased Website Traffic
For those with over 10,000 followers on a business profile, you will have access to a swipe-up feature on Instagram. When using Stories to talk about new products, provide sneak peeks or announce any exciting information relating to your blog, YouTube channel or brand site, you can apply the swipe-up feature. This allows followers to swipe up and be taken straight to the relevant website, blog post or campaign page – an effective way to increase the amount of traffic you receive while creating a seamless user journey.
Personal and Creative
Of course, you should remain professional, but the Stories features on social media channels allow brands and influencers alike to add a personalized approach to their online accounts. People are much more likely to interact with you if they feel a more personal connection.
Using images, videos, and the boomerang feature allows users to be more creative when using this feature. This is a great way to highlight your brand and grow awareness in a new and exciting way that differentiates from your main feed. Instagram Stories can also be saved to your profile, which appears above your grid of aesthetically pleasing images so that they can be viewed time and time again. This is an effective and reliable way of highlighting milestones and events.
Conclusion:
We hope this article on using stories on all of your social media campaigns has been worthwhile.
Article compiled by huesagency.com
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