Instagram Stories Open Up Huge Opportunity for Businesses

Recently there was a lot of chatter about Instagram’s release of stories. Had they neutered Snapchat? Had they copied their technology? And what did it mean for Snapchat?

These questions aside Instagram Stories has opened a unique and significant opportunity for brands to utilize the platform. How so?

Instagram is now not only a place for high quality curated content

Instagram was traditionally a curated platform where high quality imagery and video were king. Many of the best, creative, and photo-forward accounts saw huge returns, interactions, and growth. But many small brands didn’t have the know how, skills, or resources to create high quality curated content which meant their pages suffered. They also found themselves getting trapped into posting promotional content, low quality iPhone photos created by owners and staff and the results were less than mediocre.

Now that Instagram is quickly becoming the number one platform for brands, the addition of stories has given brands the ability to post lower quality photos, promotions, and announcements without paying the repercussions. If your team is at a trade show and you want to announce where, when and how to connect you can throw that into your stories, if you just got product on the shelf at a new store you can post that to your stories. The content doesn’t need to be high quality curated content for Instagram stories. It can be much closer to the on the fly content that users create for Snapchat because the announcement is immediate, deletes itself after 24 hours and doesn’t stain your page with unwanted and unappealing content. It also allows you to be a bit informal and connect with your users on a deeper level.

This also allows brands to take their time, outsource photo and content creation to make their curated content top notch without sacrificing the face of the team and the announcements that need to be made on the fly.

It is a great tool for businesses and one that can be utilized by owners and employees while your third party agencies do the heavy lifting.

Another big feature Instagram has released is that they now offer brands the ability to pull analytics

Now you can see who viewed your stories, to catch the ghost followers in the act of snooping, you can see how many impressions, profile views, and website clicks all from the new Instagram business dashboard. All huge upgrades for the platform that is starting to appeal more and more to brands with these added features.

Guest User