If you use Facebook and Instagram for either personal or business purposes, you already know what a post is. But there’s a new feature that’s cropped up in the last few years that has a lot of people confused: stories. Want to know what stories are, exactly, and how you can harness their power for your social media marketing? Pixel Fire is here to help!
What Are Stories?
Stories are basically a feature that allows users to post photos and video clips on their feeds that vanish after 24 hours. Reminiscent of Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram stories tell your business’s ongoing ‘tale’ and are meant to be used for your brand’s inner pages while your feed is the cover. When you get on Facebook or Instagram, you will see stories appear at the bar on the top of your feed. If you want to view someone’s story, simply tap on their profile photo and their story will appear in full screen portrait mode and display everything they’ve posted in the last 24 hours. Stories can be used for both business and personal pages. To advance through the story images, simply tap to go forward or back. Unlike traditional posts, there are no opportunities to like or comment on these posts and each photo will stay on your screen for five seconds while videos may stay on up to 15 seconds.
Adding to Your Story
Okay, now that you know what stories are, you’re probably wondering how to add to your own. Simply click the ‘+’ at the top of the screen if you want to post to your Instagram personal or business story or your Facebook personal story. For Facebook business, navigate to to your business page, scroll down, and click the ‘+’ that says ‘add to your story’. When the story camera is open, you can choose to take a new photo or create a video clip right then or you can choose something from your photo or video library. Once you’ve chosen what you’d like to post, you can start using fun features that make stories so engaging such as adding text, drawing over photos, including stickers, conducting polls, and more!
What to Post for Your Business
Many of our clients love the stories on Instagram and Facebook personal pages, but can’t quite figure out how to utilize them for their businesses. We suggest they use them to show behind-the-scenes glimpses of them at work such as working with a client, team building and company culture, working on big projects, or showing how employees interact. You can also showcase all the fun going on at a live event, unveil a new project, or use your story to announce a sale or limited time offer. Stories are also perfect for gathering customer or audience feedback. You can set up interactive content that lets customers give you feedback so you can mold your brand around what they’d like to see. Spotlighting your customer feedback is also a great way to show increased chatter about your business and keep the conversation going!
Benefits of Stories
So what’s the advantage of using stories instead of doing traditional posts on Facebook and Insta? First, you can post more often without it becoming overwhelming for those who interact with your page. You can also increase your brand awareness, allow constant engagement with your followers, and ensure that your brand is featured front and center at the top of your followers’ feeds. And did we mention that stories are free? For the time being, there is no cost for businesses to use Facebook or Instagram stories. That could change any day, though, so we suggest you use it while you can at no charge!
Want to know more about stories and how to utilize them to take your business to the next level? Please reach out to us at Pixel Fire Marketing! We love finding new and innovative ways for our clients to market their products and services shine with Facebook and Instagram stories!
