Facebook Stories are short videos or photo collections that are viewable for only 24 hours after release. Stories were first created and popularized by SnapChat but they stagnated and other social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram hijacked the opportunity to spearhead growth. Facebook picked the Stories in 2017 and its user base grew to 150 million users by early 2019.
The Stories feature utilizes the Facebook app camera to help users access multiple filters and add visuals, images, and geo-tags to their content. Unlike the SnapChat Stories, the Facebook Stories features key improvements such as masks from Hollywood Studios and a messenger that allows users to send short videos or images to friends.
Levering Social Media marketing with Facebook Stories
When you create Facebook Stories, they appear on top of the News Feeds of the people you share with. However, you will have to first create the stories for video marketing using the following steps.
First, you need to access the phone camera by simply tapping it. Then, go ahead and record a video, capture images and use the filters to embellish the content. You can also use the images from the phone gallery.
Once the story is ready, go ahead and share it by selecting “Your Story” at the center of the screen. After sharing the video stories, it will only be available for 24 hours before disappearing.
As more companies move to take advantage of Facebook Stories, you cannot be left behind. That said, there are important considerations that you need to factor.
- To effectively use Facebook Stories, it is important to update your friends’ list so that only those who interact with the brand get to see it.
- Facebook Stories are limited to 5000 friends. Therefore, a business marketer has to be extra careful on who receives the stories in order to get maximum impact.
- One of the methods preferred by marketers when using Facebook Stories is engaging collaborators from different niches of interest to increase reach and brand influence.
- You could opt to use Facebook Stories as a video marketing method of increasing awareness about the brand with community advocates. Your selected advocates become part of the selected list of 5000 friends required by Facebook.
- To get more from Facebook Stories, your brand could also opt for a different strategy such as only working with brand-related friends via Facebook groups.
Specific strategies that work with Facebook Stories
While it is true that Facebook Stories are attracting a lot of interest, the fact that they are new makes it relatively hard for individuals and businesses to use. This, however, should not be difficult. Once you generate content with the target client in mind, it is only a matter of ensuring it is pushed through to the right people, sit back and enjoy the results. Here are some specific ideas that work with Facebook Stories.
- Facebook Stories can be used to capture behind the scene operations of your brand. Today, this is seen as the primary reason why Facebook Stories strategy is being adopted by most companies. Showing your clients what happens behind the scene is likely to win you their trust and special attachment. This is drawn from the fact that Facebook Stories are only shown to a selected few.
- Facebook Stories is a great platform to showcase your expertise. You can use the Stories to release tutorials such as infographics to help add value to your brand and present you as an expert. You could even creatively use the Stories for surveys by asking friends to reply to short questions.
- Use Facebook Stories as a sign of bigger content. Before releasing big content, Facebook Stories can be used to carry snippets to the targeted business audience. Remember to use an easy-to-understand call-to-action that takes your users to the targeted posts.
- A perfect method of offering exclusive offers. Many brand marketers are using Facebook Stories to build an audience of high-value clients. Make sure to let your friends know that the offer is limited and only for close friends.
Facebook Stories have created a new way for marketers to promote user-generated content. It is helping to provide content creators with an opportunity to reach selected friends either for direct marketing or working with brand advocates.