All good stories can be identified by one primary characteristic: the delivery.
Even if the tale doesn’t involve an epic battle, a dreamy protagonist, or even a sale on your favorite brand of shoes, a good storyteller can make it significantly more interesting by delivering it in the right tone and manner. The same can be said of your content marketing strategy!
Every type of content you create has a prime time to be shared, a target audience, and even an optimal platform upon which it can really shine. While social media and blog posts are great standbys, the digital pages of industry storytelling are constantly changing, and it never hurts to try something new in an attempt to give your story the attention it deserves.
Video
While solid photos are still a must for social media posts and interaction, video has made its way onto more profiles and news feeds lately. We’re not talking drawn-out interviews and documentaries. The video posts that garner the most meaningful interaction and reach the most people tend to run between 10 and 30 seconds.
And why is that?
Social media is all about immediate gratification. Users are looking to consume content quickly to keep up to date on the latest trending topics and breaking news. They simply don’t have the time or patience to sit through a lengthy video. This is why short videos are perfect for social media; they give users the best of both worlds!
Video content opens the door to your followers so that they can catch a glimpse of “a day in the life” or “behind the scenes.” Photos do that, too, but a short video captures voice and mannerisms that make companies more relatable in ways that still photography can’t, especially not in a social media post.
[Want to learn more about why content marketing is so important? Click here!]
Stories and Highlights
Instagram and Facebook Stories and story Highlights can add a little extra to your brand’s Instagram account. According to Instagram, stories that are published by brands and businesses get more views than stories from regular profiles.
Creating stories for your business can be a fun activity with a lot of benefits. You can share as much as you want throughout the day — with as much creativity as you want to express your brand. Some of these benefits include:
- Improving brand visibility
- You can interact with your audience and reach more people
- Generate leads
- Get instant feedback for new products or services
- Increase brand transparency
- Use real-time marketing
- Run Instagram Stories Ads
- Increase your Instagram engagement
- Stay top of mind
When they first came into play, stories were initially added so that users could post quick, real-time updates to friends and followers, while other posts could be relegated to the customary feed. It’s meant as a way for individuals and brands to update fans on their daily adventures, lending a more personal touch to social media marketing in general.
Now, though, there is an option to extract your favorite posts – or Highlights – from a Story and display them on your profile after they would have expired. Highlights offer Instagram users the chance to preserve their Stories in separate categories, negating the expiration factor by archiving the posts in the app.
As the social media platforms and applications, we have continue to evole and new ones emerge; give the latest trends a try by incorporating them into your strategy in pursuit of better returns and more connections to your followers.
If you’re ready to amp up your digital marketing and social media game, contact the experts at Sage Island!