The Interesting Story Behind Social Media Stories

People love sharing content that they find interesting and would want others to know about it too. So, Stories, were introduced to social media audiences as social media platforms are the best place to connect people, and connect with people. With Stories, people get to share pictures, entertaining content and videos with their friends and followers and this is why Stories were created for – a massive success. Maximum data is consumed through smartphones today, and since majority of the users access social-media through mobile, most Stories are created on smartphones. With preference to visuals today, Stories popularity is burgeoning. Witty content, viral content, memes, short-videos, are shared the most.

All this was possible with Snapchat. Snapchat was the first application that introduced Stories in October 2013, as the innovative way to engage social media audiences. The major aim of Snapchat was to let the audiences share their memories and daily experiences in a fun way, with their friends, in the form of ephemeral Stories, i.e., short-lived Stories that would be visible for 24 hours. And this, clicked with the audiences. Stories allowed them to be themselves, and show their fun side to their friends. To enhance the visual appeal of Stories, image and filter effects, stickers, are an advantage to the Stories.

But it was Instagram, that made Stories reach greater heights. Today, more than 400 million people use Instagram Stories. It lets you connect with people in real time after you create Stories. Along with a visually appealing interface, Stories have features like adding filters, emojis, fun-stickers similar to Snapchat Stories. Such is the irony that it overshadowed Snapchat Stories in terms of popularity and usage, and in particular, is a craze among social media influencers, as they get to reach wider audiences and influence people.

Facebook also adopted Stories format: Stories are similar to a news feed, but they are more visually-inclined. They are also called Messenger Stories, which lets you share your experiences in a compelling way with friends. They appear on the top of the Facebook feeds. Similar are the Whatsapp Stories, but have gained attention from the popularity of Whatsapp. With similar beautifying options as the other three, it appears in the ‘Status’ field. In fact, today people create more Stories on Whataspp than sending text messages.

All this concludes that Stories, in the true sense, has kept audiences hooked to the Social Media, and made the whole process of sharing content with their acquaintances fun and memorable.

Cashing on this idea, brands have realized that in order to stay relevant, adopting Stories format to promote their product to establish and widen their loyal base, and especially if the target-audience is regular on social-media platforms.

Creating a compelling Story about the product you wish to sell is the best way to reach your audiences. Through Stories, people get inspired, informed or atleast entertained. Stories personalize your pitch, which strikes your target audience. On top of it, appealing visuals satiate their ocular senses, and enhance their viewing experience. Through Stories, you understand what people want by scanning the content that is shared on social platforms. This will help to create catchy content to delight them further. Customer queries can be solved with Stories. You can endorse your brand with your business success Stories and potential customers can be organically converted into leads. So today, most of the brands are on Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook.

Here are some facts and figures that highlight their experience on these platforms:

1. Approximately 80% of all Instagram users follow a business on it.
2. As per Socialbakers, businesses on Instagram get up to 37% of their total impressions from Instagram Stories.
3. According to Instagram, 96% of US marketers plan to continue using Stories Ads in the next 6 months, owing to the success with Stories Ads for business prospects.
4. As per Campaignlive, over 86% of Snapchat users watch the entire brand story.
5. Snapchat, where more than 400 million Stories are created on a daily basis, witnessed an increase of 18.7% in Ad revenue as compared to previous year, as per Emarketer.
6. Facebook expects Stories to become the most popular format of social sharing in 2019.

These statistics prove that Stories format greatly improves business prospects and lets you reach wider audience.

Looking at the popularity of Stories, Google introduced Web Stories, a modern storytelling format, that taps the potential of Google’s AMP technology. Predominantly for mobile users, Web Stories are a new way to present content to the audiences on the web. They are visually-appealing, tappable and load full-screen on the mobile. They produce immersive experiences and boost user-engagement. Unlike Snapchat and Instagram Stories, these Stories are searchable and shareable on the web, and they score high on user-engagement metrics too, thus boosting SEO.

Web Stories is a deviation from traditional articles, that focuses on having brief and crisp content. The slide format lets the user consume information adequately, helps him retain all the information too. Web Stories are great way for businesses to grow their presence online. With visually compelling content, it is a creative way to promote products, which is sure to attract customers. In fact, reports state that Web Stories should be a must in a content marketing strategies, in coming years.

Visual Stories is a blogging platform that lets you create Web Stories. Web Story Builder allows you to create content, adorned with visuals. Customization options facilitates the beautification to the Stories. The content produced by these users is immersive and is fascinating enough to attract audiences. Promoting your products and services through Web Stories is the modern way to impress your masses and fetch better ROI.

So, adopting Stories format is the sure-shot way to achieve professional success and with Visual Stories, both the businesses and the audiences are bound to be satisfied.