Weekly News Insight: Stories Marketing
Savvy marketers and entrepreneurs have embraced Stories, clearing the path for increased engagement and brand awareness.
Since Snapchat debuted Stories in 2013, a bunch of the internet’s most popular services have introduced their iterations of the feature. The most famous instances of this being when Facebook added stories to all its platforms: its main app, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Granted some of the fantastic benefits of Stories include great discover-ability, immediacy, sense of exclusivity, as well as personalization. Savvy marketers and entrepreneurs have embraced Stories, clearing the path for increased engagement and brand awareness. The storytelling has reached a new dimension with the added creative touches via stickers, music, or polls, making them an exclusive feed for the most dedicated followers.
This week, Viral Access presented some Stories-related updates for you to incorporate them in your latest marketing strategy.
Facebook Stories Got New Link and Mention Stickers
Social Media Today reported that Facebook is working on new Stories tools and these ones look set to be of particular interest to social media marketers. The main option of interest is the ability to add referral links. At present, the capacity to post links to Facebook Stories is available to some users, but access is very limited. Selected users have been able to post links in their Facebook Stories as part of a test, while it is also possible (for certain Facebook Pages which meet the required criteria) to cross-post from Instagram Stories, and have Instagram’s ‘swipe up’ links active on both platforms. But the capacity to post swipe up links to Instagram Stories is only available to Instagram profiles with at least 10k followers, or a verified profile.
The other option being tested is the mention sticker. The mention sticker would enable users to tag other Facebook users in their Facebook Story, just like Instagram. The option will give users more ways to raise awareness of their Stories content, while for brands, it’ll provide another way to boost engagement with their audience. According to Zuck and Co., Facebook Stories is the future and it will become the key social sharing option.
Instagram Stories Update: More Stickers?
A new “order” sticker recently appeared in the app’s Stories, alongside existing stickers as well as location and music features, as reported by Mashable. Though unconfirmed whether this sticker will be official, but Instagram has been pushing harder into shopping in recent months. The app recently introduced a new checkout feature, which lets you buy products without leaving the app, and allows some influencers to sell products directly in their posts. Not only that, Instagram will also start highlighting dedicated shopping channels in its new Explore section.
While Instagram has been pretty deliberate about its new shopping features as most have been limited to a small pool of approved influencers or brands, still, the company has made it clear shopping will be a major part of its business in the future. Whether or not that means any account would eventually be able to hawk products, as the appearance of this “order” sticker might suggest, is unclear. If nothing else, it’s yet another reminder that we’re going to see a lot more shopping-oriented features on Instagram.
Line Adds Snapchat Stories
Japanese messaging app Line has become the latest platform to mimic the ‘story’ concept introduced and made famous by Snapchat. Line’s ‘Stories’ feature will enable its users to “share moments, moods, and statuses in the form of video, photo, or text”. As typical with any Stories feature, these posts will disappear after 24 hours.
Moreover, as reported by Mobile Marketing Magazine, when a user modifies their profile picture or background, they can also choose to display this within their story, having previously only being able to do so in the ‘Friend’s’ list. This latest update from Line is just another proof showing how Stories could potentially become the Next Big Thing in social media marketing.
