Instagram Stories – Better for business than Snapchat?
How does it go again – imitation is the highest form of flattery? I wonder if that’s how Snapchat see Instagrams new ‘Stories’ feature that was rolled out earlier last week.
The new feature, aiming to encourage users to create and share more content on the social network, has been the talk of the digital marketing world over the last couple of days – ranging from criticism to acceptance with the odd meme in between.
So what does this mean for the marketing world? What does it mean for the world of social media? Let’s delve a little deeper Instagram Stories and whether your business should jump on the new hype.
What are stories?
Hmm, how do I put this?
…Instagram stories are pretty much a complete replica of Snapchat stories, where your posted content will last just 24 hours on people’s newsfeed.
The social media platform, owned by Facebook, says users will now have the ability to constantly post photographs and videos throughout the day, preferably on irrelevant things like your Starbucks coffee, pictures of your new clothes, cat pictures, and all the other things your followers are really, really interested in.
How is it different from Snapchat?
I can only notice one difference in the two; which is how both platforms prioritize content creation and consumption.
The Snapchat app opens to the camera, encouraging users to create more content. However, Instagram opens on your newsfeed and encourages users to scroll down first.
Unlike Snapchat, Instagram stories are one of the first visible tools, sitting at the top of your newsfeed.
Apart from this, there isn’t much difference.
Which one’s better for your business?
When it comes down to which one is better for your business, there is only one thing you need to take into consideration – your following.
For many of you, this will put Instagram in favour. The majority of you, that are online, would have had an Instagram account before Snapchat was even born, so understandably, your Instagram following will be somewhat larger than your Snapchat following.
The whole aim of social media marketing for your business is to get the most amount of people you possibly can to engage with your business.
If you have an impressive following on Instagram, but your Snapchat is still quite new and only engaged with by close friends and family, I’d definitely recommend prioritising Instagram stories first.
Ads Opportunites Expected to follow
Since Facebook’s purchase of Instagram, we’ve seen a lot more advertising on our Insta homepage, plus allowing you to create Instagram adverts in the Power Editor.
This makes us believe that we’ll be seeing advertising opportunities available for the Stories section quite soon, giving marketers, even more ways to use the new feature and engage users.
Engagement is key for Instagram.
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How to Create an Instagram Story
To create a story on Instagram, simply tap the new “+” icon, which can be found in the top left-hand corner of your Instagram news feed, or you can reveal the story camera by simply swiping left.
Once the story camera is open you can take a photo or record a video, just as you would normally on Instagram. After you’ve recorded your video or taken a photo, you will be able to add a number of filters or text and drawings to your content – just like Snapchat.
Once your story is posted you can also view some basic analytics, showing you how many times each post in your story has been viewed and who has viewed it. When watching your own story, swipe up to check out this data and who’s seen each photo and video.
How to Add Content from Your Camera Roll
There’s a cool Instagram stories feature that allows you to upload content created within the last 24hrs from your smartphone camera roll. Do to this, simply swipe downwards on the stories camera, and you’ll see the latest content from your camera roll appear at the top of your screen. From here, simply select the content you’d like to add to your story.
Privacy
Your story follows the privacy settings of your account. If you set your account to private, your story is visible only to your followers. However, you can also easily hide your entire story from anyone you don’t want to see it, even if they follow you.
