Go to the top of social with Stories
Written by Jade McAuley, Rebel Nation
I can’t be bothered looking up the actual numbers, but I estimate there’s roughly eleventy billion and seven people using social networks, such as Facebook and Instagram. As a business, the algorithms are continually being updated to basically work “against you”. While only consistent, quality effort is the way to beat algorithms – there is something super simple you can do to get to the top of people’s news feeds and stand out from the clutter.
And that is <cue big band music> <long pause> <holding the suspense> … Stories!
Dammit, I already put that in the title. But yes, when you open up FB or Insta and go to start scrolling – what’s at the top of your feed? Stories from people and brands that you follow. If you haven’t started experimenting with this, there really is no time like right now. And I mean right now. Because Stories don’t last, which is both good and bad. The good part is that you can play around with a heap of different ideas and styles of content to really find your groove, but obviously bad because if you create amazing content then it’s goneskis, including its’ analytics. But wait, no it’s not! If you’ve created a Story that is the absolute bomb, you can also share it as a post. On Insta, for Stories that are especially good and on brand, you can pin them to the top of your profile. Well, you can actually pin any old crap there but probs best to stick to your best content if you’re going to showcase it.
At the moment, you can only do both via the mobile apps for each platform. Having said that, Facebook rolls out changes constantly and Insta updates are also pretty continual these days so this could change before I even publish this post. But for now, head to your page and click the Add to Story button. On Insta, it’s at the top of your page’s news feed (the home button). For Facey, you have to scroll a little but it’s on your actual page. Please find below some handy screenshots for how to find this, for those of you who couldn’t follow my incredibly detailed and exhaustively comprehensive instructions. Use it, have fun with it, track it, try out new content ideas on it, engage with it and put your business at the top by having a crack and not being afraid of it.
PS. Since publishing this, Facebook has rolled out an update that now lets you add you Facebook stories via the desktop! #howexciting #thanksfacey
