Instagram launched Stories, a feature allowing users to post videos and photos that appear together in slideshow format. After 24 hours, they disappear. It may be a blatant rip-off of Snapchat, which operates in much the same way, but in just a few months, Stories showed who was boss. While Snapchat has 150 million daily users, about 300 million are using Instagram’s Stories each day.
In this issue, we’ll take a closer look at Instagram Stories, and how you can leverage it for your business.
How does Stories work?
The videos or photos that you post are strung together to make a slideshow gallery. As a business owner, your Stories will reside in a separate location from your business’s regular feed. The advantage of this is that you don’t have to worry about your audience being oversaturated with frequent updates.
How can I use Stories for my business?
There are quite a few ways you can leverage Stories to boost your brand.
- Covering an event
If your business has an event coming up, that’s a great way to give Stories a test. You or employees could use the time to take and post photos and videos of products, interviews with team members or even customers.
Because the content will disappear in 24 hours, the older content will automatically go away – leaving your story organized and clean.
- Offer a special product for limited time
A limited time offer can really move buyers from the shopping phase directly into purchasing. A cool way to do that with Stories is to post photos or videos of a particular product with the message that the offer claim will expire when the Story does. - Let customers see the human side of your business
We can take a page from NASA for this one. The space organization recently used Instagram Stories to introduce astronauts, complete with personal details about them.
In an age when we’re doing more and more consuming online, a bit of personality can go a long way for businesses that rely upon their local customer base.
Partner With Caldiatech to Optimize Your Business’s Social Media Presence
We love things like Instagram’s Stories, and would welcome the opportunity to show you how it and other social media channels can be used to boost your business.
Call us at Caldiatech; our number is 800-728-1411 or you can reach us online.