This type of online content is called ephemeral content, meaning content that disappears after a certain period of time. The marketing industry predicts that Instagram Stories will overtake the main news feed in popularity by the end of 2020. I, for one, know that my Stories regularly gain more engagement than my grid posts, and when I’m looking to catch up on accounts that I love to follow, you can guarantee that their Stories icon will be highlighted at the top of my feed, encouraging me to dive straight into their Stories.  This all underlines why it is now more important than ever for businesses to integrate Stories into their social media strategy. 

What’s Behind Our Love Affair With Stories?

The rise of ephemeral content is no surprise. It speaks to the root of social media’s original purpose – It’s spontaneous and raw, capturing life’s mini-moments on the go. At a time where personal branding rules, it offers unfiltered, behind-the-scenes access like no other social media platform. Its fleeting lifespan also creates an element of exclusivity which entices consumers. It relies on fear of missing out (FOMO) to encourage followers to regularly connect with brands and influencers for their latest updates. If you miss a Story, then it’s gone!

How Can Businesses Utilise Stories?

Instagram and Facebook Stories are the perfect platform for businesses to showcase the personality behind the brand. It allows you to TELL rather than SELL your company which is a  fundamental ingredient to social media marketing success. Remember, people buy into people, they don’t buy into things. As followers, we immediately feel a greater and deeper connection to brands which are humanized and reveal the people behind the product or service. This connection drives sales.

Stories also allow businesses to interact with their customers and clients in an entirely different way. There are a number of highly interactive and original features in both Instagram and Facebook Stories which can really fuel direct-to-consumer communications. For example, there are polls, questions, quiz stickers, location stickers and even searchable hashtag stickers, all of which encourage followers to engage and join conversations about and with your brand. Followers feel that responding to Stories means their comments, questions and poll answers are influencing the direction of the brand; this further increases brand loyalty.

If you are promoting events you can create stickers to countdown to tickets being on sale, acts being announced, or merchandise being released, with followers able to set a reminder directly from the Story – pretty cool!  If you are an ecommerce business, you can even add product stickers to your Stories to increase shopability. For businesses with over 10K followers on Instagram, there is a “Swipe Up” button which can direct consumers directly to your website.  

How Can Businesses Create Stories Relevant To Their Followers?

Think of Stories as a “Day In The Life” feature. Post photo and video content about your day-to-day operations, inspirations and musings. Don’t be afraid to show your personality as individuals and as a business. Long gone are the days when businesses had to remain formal at all times! Let your imagination and creativity run wild, and explore all the functions to see what engages your followers successfully. Use a mix of hashtags on your stories to make them searchable and attract new followers to your brand.

It’s fine to sprinkle in promotional posts too, as long you are following the 80/20 rule – 80% of your content should be behind-the-scenes and a resource with only 20% as directly promotional.  Here are 5 content ideas:

1. Video/photo of your office /workspace.
2. Introduce yourself to camera.
3. Share content from your main newsfeed.
4. Share user-generated content which inspires you.
5. Share user-generated content about current hashtag holidays, for example #ValentinesDay or #NationalChipWeek – whatever is relevant to your business!

Instagram Hack! – You can actually save your Stories into highlight buttons on your Instagram profile which turns your profile into a mini-website and helps you showcase different aspects of your business. Create branded Story Highlights easily in Canva to organise your Stories into themes or topics, and reference them in your grid posts to drive followers to check our past highlights they may have missed. When followers start to regularly watch your Stories, Instagram will prioritise your Stories in the follower’s Story reel, enabling them to never miss a moment!

Interactive, behind-the-scenes content will increase brand awareness, customer loyalty and ultimately sales. This is the beauty and power of Stories. 

The post The Rise of Ephemeral Content: How To Use Stories For Business  appeared first on Jem Bahaijoub Consulting - Social Never Sleeps.

S.M.A.R.T stands for:

Specific:

Be as specific as possible with your social media goals. This will help you track progress and measure success. For example, “increasing brand awareness” is commonly used as a social media goal. This is a very intangible concept unless it is defined more clearly. What does brand awareness mean to you? Typically, it relates to social engagement, shares, and brand mentions. It’s vital to be as specific as possible with your goals in order to track success.

Measurable:

Every goal needs some kind of metric attached to it. “Improving customer service on social media” is a great concept, but it’s not a goal unless you have a way to measure that improvement. Measurable goals are often called “Key Performance Indicators”.  For example, here are two goal types of measurable goals I’ve used for influencer marketing campaigns in the past – Goal one is brand awareness measured by reach, impressions and engagement. Goal two is actions measured by click-through rate, website visits, newsletter sign-ups, or ticket sales.

Attainable:

Be realistic. Your social media goals should absolutely be ambitious, but are they achievable considering your current resources? The bigger your goal, the bigger the effort. It’s easy to say you want to show a 50% increase in sales from social media, but it’s much harder to achieve it. Instead, think of how you can break that goal down into smaller pieces. For example, you could say “next month, we will improve our add-to-cart rate by 10%.” As you complete these smaller, more attainable milestones, you’ll build momentum towards your ultimate sales goal.

Relevant:

All social media goals should be tied to your business goals. Understanding your business goals helps you choose the right social media platforms to be on, drives your social content, and also helps you track your success. For example, if your business goal is to increase sales by 10% per month, you may have a S.M.A.R.T social media goal of increasing leads by 10% per month via direct-messages. This goal will be attainable as you will invest more money into social media management in order to post more consistently, engage with your target audience, and have clear “calls-to-action”.

Timely:

Deadlines keep everyone accountable. Include a timeframe for completion of your goal so you know when to check in on your success. Hold yourself accountable. Not giving yourself enough time, may discourage you from accomplishing what you set out to do. Start by making a list of your short and long term goals. Check them through the S.M.A.R.T. checklist and begin building your priorities.

Get planning and good luck!

###

Establishing SMART social media goals is a vital step in the social media strategy for any business. Establishing your SMART goals is one aspect of my Social Never Sleeps Mastermind course. The aim of the course is to help small business owners create a complete social media strategy for their business, and empower them with the knowledge and tools to implement it successfully. Full information click HERE.

The post How to get S.M.A.R.T. With Your Social Media Strategy appeared first on Jem Bahaijoub Consulting - Social Never Sleeps.