Instagram is officially taking over...and we love it!!
The gram has been around for quite a while right and although it started off as an arty-farty, alty platform where people shared over edited photos of themselves, it's now carved it's way to being an essential in any business or influencers toolkit.
We're loving the gram at the moment, specifically for the Insta Stories feature that's become a hit recently. We were sceptical at first, don't get me wrong I thought that Instagram was just copying Snapchat and totally didn't understand why we would want to have the SAME feature on two platforms - but I can tell you that I'm well and truly converted now.
To give some context, Instagram Stories allow you to post a bunch of different photos and videos, that come together into one 'story' that lasts for 24 hours and then disappears. (If you go to instagram they're the circles at the top of the page).
To prevent this from being a full on, feature length fan-girl novel on Insta stories, I've picked a few reasons why you should love Instagram Stories as well, and bullet-pointed them below:
1) Its real time, and real life - on a platform that was dedicated to the best selfie takers and posers, Instagram Stories injects a sense of 'reality' back into the mix by allowing users to get a look into the real life lives of the brands they follow.
2) It only lasts for 24 hours so you can be more bold with your content! Unlike the rest of the content on the internet that lasts forever, Insta Stories only last for 24 hours which means what you put on there doesn't have to be your BEST stuff, it can be the stuff you don't want to make a public, permanent post about. That means we get more creative freedom to PLAY with content which we love!
3) You can include video, photos, boomerangs, emojis, stickers and scribbles into your story which makes it a lot of fun! The other super thing is that Instagram allows you to use all the photos and video's you've taken on your phone in the last 24 hours, which means you can go about your day getting snap happy on your camera, and then craft up your story from the content you've taken throughout the day - super handy!
4) You can TAG other people in your story and they'll get a notification that they've been mentioned, but even better, users can now click on that tag and follow it to that person/business which makes collaboration on Instagram much more achievable than ever before!
5) You can then EXPORT your story for the day into a nice little video file to use elsewhere like to post straight to Facebook - how cool is that!? **FAV FEATURE ALRET**
5) We all know about the old Facebook algorithm where if someone doesn't interact with your content they'll see less of it overtime - well Instagram has brought the same algorithm in (they're just a bit less 'cray cray' with it than Facebook). Instagram Stories however provide a super way of increasing your engagement with your audience as if someone watches your Insta story, it's classed as engagement on your content so it will help you build your following!
So there you have it team - the slightly condensed version of our fan-girl novel on Insta stories. Now we're setting a challenge to everyone out there to get a Insta story happening today - if you've never done one before then now's the time to start, and if you've had a play already but aren't too sure, get creating some fun and fresh content!!
And at the very least - head over and follow us on Instagram so you can see our stories!
If you want to find out more about Insta stories and HOW to do them, have a read here.
