Sookio writes:
The stories feature is ever-growing. First introduced by Snapchat in 2013, followed by Instagram in 2016, Facebook in 2017 and LinkedIn in 2018. The stories on the different platforms have similarities and differences but which one is proving the most popular and effective for business?
Stories are images or clips with a short lifespan. So they’ll typically run for 24 hours, after which the content self-destructs. Some businesses use them for content that is good, but which isn’t important enough to stay on the main social media feed long term. It enables you to post frequently, knowing that it’s being seen by people who really want to look at it.
Stories are mostly used to give a quick overview of what’s happening in someone’s life on any given day. In a business context, you could be using a story to promote products, so when you swipe up, you’re redirected to that product. The ways of using stories on social media depend on what platform you’re using. As part of our Sookio Labs series, we tried out the different options.
Snapchat
The whole story concept was first introduced by Snapchat, a network entirely based on the fleeting life-span of its ephemeral content. Their stories feature first came out in October 2013. Before this, the app’s only features were sending and receiving snaps from other people. The photo or video you post goes to your very own stories section of your account, which is visible by you and all your friends.
You can tap anybody's name that you have added as a friend to view their story, in the order they were posted, if the user posted several of them. When you post a story, your friends will see it appear in their stories section. All users can configure their privacy settings so that their stories can be viewed by anyone on Snapchat, just friends or a customised group of users.
Snapchat users tend to use the feature to tell a story about their entire day in a narrative manner. These stories are used a lot for friends to see what interesting things they have been doing in the last 24 hours. It’s a great option if you'd like your great snap to be viewable for more than just a few seconds.
It’s not really recommended that you use Snapchat Stories for your business. It hasn’t got much of a professional feel about it compared to the other platforms. However, while using Snapchat I have experienced a few ads trying to disrupt me as I browse through friends’ stories. These ads are primarily from brands connected with Snapchat and are really only promoting their video content - so if you’re not a massive brand then it’s unlikely you’ll get much return on investment.
Visit the Sookio blog to find out what the best platform to use stories on is for your business