There was a time when if you heard about Stories you immediately thought of Snapchat. Since 2016, however, things have changed, and now we can definitely say that the "king" of the stories is the giant Instagram (with Facebook attached).
The platform, launched in October 2010 , continues to evolve, and never before have Instagram stories been fundamental. Yes, I'm not just talking about the passionate users for whom swiping is now a daily habit, but also and above all about brands and businesses.
It's clear by now that videos are slowly - but not too much - taking over photos (check out these video marketing stats for more), and today Instagram Stories are almost more important than posts.
But what are Instagram Stories really, how do they work, and who sees the Stories on Instagram?
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What are Instagram Stories
You always hear about the Instagram story, but do you really know what it is?
Instagram has described them as a way to share all the moments of your day, not just the ones you want to keep on your profile. Reason why all content posted on Instagram Stories disappears after 24 hours - unless you save it in Featured Stories, but we'll talk about that later.
Instagram stories allow users to create a slideshow of photos and videos, telling a story that is much more complete and engaging than what you can tell with a post. In a certain sense, even more "light".
The stories you post on Instagram don't clog your followers' feed, and are capable of generating never-before-seen levels of interaction. Precisely for this reason, brands base almost all of their success on Instagram on this functionality.
Not only that, another advantage that Instagram stories have is that they are able to significantly boost the number of private messages. So much so that Instagram Direct has become one of the most popular messaging apps in the world (with over 375 million users! ).
instagram story for brand
Who sees the stories on Instagram?
Each time you post a story, the circle around your Philippines Photo Editor profile picture changes from the usual gray to pink, letting all your followers know that you've posted new content.
At this point, you may be wondering who is seeing your Instagram Stories.
Let's start by saying that you, and only you, choose who to show your stories to. In fact, the platform has recently added the ability to select your "closest Instagram friends".
Basically, you can create a list of friends, and when you post your stories you can choose whether to show them to all your followers or just your close friends.
You know the pink headband we talked about earlier? If you post a story reserved for your close friends, the circle will turn green - but only for users who belong to your list!
Aside from that, you also have the ability to control who actually viewed your Stories. Just click on your profile picture to view the stories you have posted and swipe up to get the complete list of people who have viewed your Instagram story.
Once you open the list of views, you can also select a single user and choose to hide the story from him so that he can no longer view it, or contact him via Direct.