Introducing Instagram Stories, and How To Use it

Some big news in the social media world the last week – Instagram have launched a new Stories feature. 

It has ruffled a lot of feathers as they have publicly confirmed it was inspired by the success of Snapchat, and it works in a very similar way.

If you have an Instagram account, you can now choose if you want to share pictures to the profile wall, or share them in Stories – which appears at the top of the feed and disappears after 24 hours.

While there are lots of similarities, such as 10 second clip limits and uploads disappearing after 24 hours, it is not exactly the same as Snapchat.

So what’s different? Well, for starters there aren’t as many cool filters available on Instagram, yet. But the reason we love this new tool is that while only a few of you might use Snapchat, a lot of you already use Instagram and already have lots of followers to share your stories with right now.

But what does this mean for you? Basically, people want to see what you’re up to. A photo is great but a sequence of videos and images? It’s additive!

The reason why Snapchat works so well is the images and videos are raw and emotive. There’s no time to take the perfect picture or edit the perfect video. It’s real life in real time, and people love it! Only now, you can do all of this on Instagram without having to add permanent content to your page or risk over posting.

Also, even though Snapchat is attracting new users at an alarming rate, Instagram is still king when it comes to numbers.

You can start making a story by tapping the plus button found on the top left-hand corner of the home screen of your Instagram page and you can upload any pre-existing media as well as creating real time content to share.

Another awesome tool is that you can keep track of exactly who is viewing your stories by opening your story and swiping up on the screen. At the bottom of the screen will be a view counter and the names of the people who viewed your story. This means instant feedback on how many people you are reaching.

Just in case you still need convincing, here are three more ways you can use Instagram stories:

1. Add a human element– showcase the people who work hard behind the scenes to make amazing things happen or volunteers out there having fun, it adds value.

2. Tell your story– add images that wouldn’t normally get shared and real life moments to show who you are and what you’re all about.

3. Be more visible– stories encourage user interaction and adding hashtags will make your content easy to find.

So get creative, have fun doing what you do and while you’re at it put an awesome story together to share with all your existing and future followers.

One more burning question, does this mean the end of Snapchat? No, but it will definitely keep them on their toes!