By: Tanja Džido, Digital Brand Consultant
If there’s anything better than a good story, it’s a good story told through visual content.
The most effective platform for visual storytelling, Instagram, has raised the bar to a new level through Instagram Stories – a “loan” from Snapchat in which users can share interesting moments over a period of 24 hours. This does not undermine all its fairy-tale nature and embellished reality, because the posts in the users’ feed still remain high quality, and the option Stories has enabled the sharing of even those simple, unfiltered and unprocessed moments behind these perfect visuals.
The best-known brands around the world welcomed the feature with open arms, because it provides them additional opportunities for engaging consumers in a closer relationship.
And what about you? Do you use this option? And do you use it skillfully?
1. “Behind the scene” content
The authenticity that lacked in pre-prepared visuals has been introduced through Instagram Stories. Now you have the chance to take your followers on a virtual journey and show them the “behind the scenes” world. A good way to combine the posts and the behind the scenes content: if you, for example, worked on a new cocktail, you post the processed photo in your feed, and through Stories you post the process of making the cocktail, along with the recipe and entertaining moments during the preparation. In this way you extend your interesting story and continue communication with followers, thus encouraging more interaction and intimacy.
2. Collaboration with influencers
No longer does everything have to stop with one good post of your brand on the influencers’ channels. With Stories, you can extend the whole experience to a live Q&A session for example, or some entertaining video clips that will encircle the whole story and give a human touch to the whole collaboration. It will show your followers that the influencer you selected really enjoys your brand and will convey more than a simple photo can, and that is the emotion, in its raw state, which is far more important for followers than the embellished photos.
3. Live video
Are you launching a new campaign soon, or do you have an interesting guest at some event you are organizing? Why not take the opportunity for live video content that will engage your companions on a whole new level. Although you are probably familiar with the benefits of live video via Facebook, Instagram delivers it in a new, more intimate version. Instagram communication one-on-one is making a comeback in a grand style, and exactly through live video, users feel more part of the story of your brand.
What do users say?
According to Instagram’s data, 70% of users follow brand posts on a daily basis, and branded content makes a third of the most popular Instagram stories. Users show that they prefer well-conceived stories, as one of the five published stories receives a query through messages after being viewed. Users prefer stories of brands that show the creative process and “behind the scenes” planning, and as far as public figures are concerned, they love to take a peek into their daily life and see how they spend it.
Along with the newly opened advertising possibilities, Instagram Stories shows even greater potential, particularly because the ads are not so invasive. They are integrated naturally into other stories and do not interrupt their course, offering customers a new, more intimate level of relationship with a brand, and place before brands a new challenge of creativity when creating content.
Ready to embark on an adventure of Instagram Stories-telling?
