Social Media Stories: How to Engage and Retain Your Followers With Short Videos and Images

Since Snapchat debuted the Stories function and was hugely successful among teenagers and young adults, every other app has tried to copy this feature. 

Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook have stories integrated into each of their app experiences, even if the feature is branded differently. YouTube followed suit some years later, and even Twitter attempted it with its now-defunct Fleets feature. 

The popularity of stories across social media platforms points to something important about being human, and marketers tap into this. 

In an age where many people try to find picture-perfect poses and photographs for social media, the temporariness of stories (typically 24 hours limit) enables people to share daily updates, do silly stuff, and bare their raw selves to their followers without having to worry about the lasting presence of internet data. 

You can tap into the spontaneity that human beings enjoy so much to showcase a unique side of your brand. Through short videos and images posted as stories, followers can glimpse a brand’s personalities and offerings through behind-the-scenes footage, company announcements, and much more. 

More so, the time-sensitive nature of stories makes them a great feature for building excitement and urgency through limited-time promotions, early bird offers, pre-orders, and so on. 

Read on to discover interesting ways to harness this feature to enable you to engage and retain your followers more meaningfully in an organic way.

Choose the Right Platform

Almost every social media platform now has a story feature. However, that does not mean that just any platform with a story feature is right for you. You still have to consider your target audience and select the platform in which they are most active. 

LinkedIn is primarily for career professionals and is not the place you go to if you target young adults; you might rather use Snapchat. Also, it matters what kind of features you offer and your social media goals. 

Instagram Stories are great for new product awareness, but if you want to generate attention for a new webinar, you should probably use YouTube. 

These are not hard and fast rules, of course. Always research what’s happening in your industry to know which platform to use. From an SEO perspective, use the Eye10 Industry Checker tool to identify the leaders in your niche.

Use Visually Attractive Content

Stories are heavily focused on visual rather than written modes, and you need to tap into this to create visually appealing content that will attract followers better. 

As always, images speak better than text and create a better emotional connection. So, you can’t avoid using the right visuals for your social media stories. Infographics, GIFs, memes, short presentations, etc., are a few of the ways you can incorporate visual elements into your stories. 

Use a Consistent Brand Voice

Social media stories give your brand a more spontaneous and quirkier personality. But that does not mean you should throw caution to the wind and do whatever you want. 

You still want to maintain a professional outlook by using a consistent brand voice and tone across your social media platforms. It also triggers the memorability factor because people can easily associate a certain personality and tone with your brand. 

This flows from determining what values you want to portray and how you want to portray them. Then choose the right keywords with which you can present your brand. The Eye10 Keyword Planner helps you select keywords that align with your brand.

Incorporate Storytelling Techniques

The feature’s name should give you the idea that some storytelling has to be involved. Social media stories evolved to allow users to tell personal stories that resonate with their followers. 

And it would be best if you did that too. Stories are more memorable, more relatable, and more emotion-evoking. So, don’t just post a bland story every other day. Keep up the suspense and intrigue that make your followers want more. 

This increased emotional connection with your audience enhances engagement and retention. 

Include a Call-to-Action

Regardless of the storytelling techniques used, you certainly do not just want your followers to marvel at the excellence of your stories.

You want them to take action, whether to purchase your new product or sign up for your newsletter. You are already halfway there by using stories since, as mentioned earlier, the feature evokes urgency. 

But you must take the extra step of adding a CTA such as “swipe up to learn more.” If you use paid ads, then this is an option by default. But with organic posts, you have to take the extra step.

Analyze and Optimize

Certainly, monitoring the performance of your social media stories to ensure you are on the course regularly is necessary. 

Thankfully, most social media apps have an in-built analytics feature to track your engagement, reach, retention, conversions, etc. 

Then, you can harness this information to optimize your future content and improve your storytelling techniques over time. Social media and human behavior are always evolving. So, it would be best to always stay on top of the latest trends. 

Conclusion 

Stories are a must-have for any business or brand engaged in social media marketing. They are ubiquitous, fun, and memorable ways to connect with your audience instantly. 

Of course, your social media strategy should be in cohesion with your overall digital marketing strategy, including SEO. So, aspects like choosing keywords, analyzing competitors, and so on remain critical. Using Eye10 SEO tools gives you an edge over your competitors, and you can get started today for just $3.