Social Media Stories: A Shift in Relevance

It’s time we talk about ramping up your business’s consumer appeal with today’s most popular social media gambit – the story.

In this smartphone age where devices are plentiful but attention spans are shrinking, the solution is the fun and effective story. All social media platforms are catching the story train, and your business should jump on board, too.

Stories are snack-sized, interactive, visual clips that have the power to engage your audience and keep loyal followers up to date without wearing out your welcome. They are made up of full-screen, easy to consume images or videos that take far less time to scroll through than traditional posts and captions clogging up news feeds. Plus, they’re contained in one spot, making them easy for your audience to find.

Stories generate excitement for your business while providing viewers with tidbits of information you want them to have. Their temporary, 24-hour lifespan drives a sense of urgency to “stay in the loop.” And it’s acceptable to produce a high volume of story content (unlike posts, which should be limited to one a day to avoid annoying your audience).

Get the Gist:

WHO: You and your business!

WHAT: 10-15 second clips of photos or videos that disappear after 24 hours.

WHEN: Anytime! The socially-set limitations of posts don’t apply to stories.

WHERE: Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok.

WHY: To increase your brand awareness and improve perception with captivating, easily-digestible content.

HOW: Keep reading to find out…

3 Goals for Your Stories:

Before you start creating stories, first determine who your followers are (or who you want them to be) and what they need from you. Then, take these steps:

1. Help: Give answers and provide solutions. And keep in mind that videos are the new currency—keep yours concise yet full of relevant content to keep followers interested.
   
2. Familiarize: More and more, consumers are choosing brands after “researching” the brand on social media. By exploring these platforms, potential customers have the chance to see who and what’s behind your brand. Embrace that! Take them behind the scenes and give them relatable content.
   
3. Connect: Use insights, impressions, and click-through rates to make data-driven decisions and deliver more of what your customers want. Conversation, education, and meaningful engagement are taking the place of perfectly-curated feeds.

7 Story Features to Use to Wow Followers:

Don’t miss out on these tools that will take your storytelling to the next level! The more opportunity you create for your followers to interact with you, the better your numbers will be.

• Customize your stories: Text, animations or gifs, music, stickers, graphics, shoppable links, hashtags, locations or user tags, interactive boxes, and more. It may seem unnecessary, but these “accessories” help keep viewers on your stories longer.
• Initiate interaction: Use polls, question boxes, and multiple choice questions to interact with your followers, host a Q&A, ask opinions to tailor your content, and better serve your audience
• Go live: Have a plan ahead of time so you stay on topic and give your viewers concise, helpful and fun content, but do it live! Let people tune in to see you in action and respond to their comments or questions in real time
• Activate engagement: Host a contest, giveaway, or guest takeover. And make sure to always include a call to action to encourage even more brand engagement.
• Highlights: The highlight feature allows you to save stories into categories that live on your profile so they bypass the 24-hour window and remain accessible to anyone who wants to go back and rewatch them
• Inform: Keep followers up to date on sales, specials, launches, webinars, and other events; link external content, tag products, and announce company updates.
• Spread the word: Share recent posts to generate more activity, and when followers share your content—you can publish that, too—the rest of your viewers will see that real people are loving what you’re doing!

Top 3 Best Story Practices:

Congrats! You made it to the end of the article. As a reward, here are our top three BEST tips for social media storytelling.

• Keep your foundational content recycling, so that as new viewers find you, they know who you are and what you do.
• Be the trendy video people want to see, not the one that feels like a bothersome interruption.
• Don’t spam your followers! Keep your content high-quality and high-value, even if it means reducing your posting frequency. Less is more in some cases.

So there you have it. Stories have been around for a few years, but if you want your brand to stay relevant, you can’t avoid them any longer. 

Don’t have enough time to develop dynamic, informative stories and engage with followers—all while handling operations? That’s what we’re here for. Our social media specialists are on stand-by to help, so you can focus on maximizing revenue knowing your online presence is in good hands. Ready to start the conversation? Let’s chat!