Measuring the Success of the "Stories" Feature

Snapchat undeniably changed the game when it introduced Stories, allowing users to post vanishing pictures and videos enhanced with filters, frames, effects, text and Emojis for all of their friends to see. It didn’t take long for other social platforms to follow suit. While Facebook-owned platform Instagram experienced some success with its copycat feature, Facebook’s own Stories feature doesn’t seem to compare in popularity.

Why Facebook Stories hasn’t caught on… yet.

Simply put, Facebook hasn’t experienced success with Stories because the platform doesn’t compare the way that Instagram and Snapchat do.

Demographically, Facebook’s users are different than Snapchat’s and Instagram’s. While Snapchat and Instagram are dominated by millennials, Facebook’s audience is broader in age range. Once millennial users grew attached to Snapchat’s feature, it became natural for them to post similarly on Instagram. Your Aunt Deloris on Facebook won’t adapt as easily to the transition. This could present some opportunity for brands with older target audiences to use Story strategies in the future. But it’s just not happening yet.

Facebook hasn’t invested nearly as much promotional effort to teach users about the new feature as it did for its recently launched Live feature. It used commercials, out of home ads and other methods to educate its audience on its newest addition.

Plus, the way that people use Facebook is much different than the way that people use its competitors, specifically in the way its content is generated. Both Snapchat and Instagram are primarily user-content generated apart from Snapchat Discover and platform ads, whereas Facebook has faced a decline in content created by its users. Many of your Facebook friends are sharing posts, pictures, articles and videos rather than creating them.

The Strategy

Perhaps this push is meant to encourage user-generated content on Facebook, or maybe it’s an attempt to level the playing field in terms of competition. We’ll see how Facebook’s strategy plays out. But what about yours?

On one hand, it’s an opportunity for earned media in an uncluttered feature in an otherwise pay-to-play platform. On the other, you could be shouting into the abyss. How would you use Facebook Stories for your advertising strategy? Will you try it?

If you’re ready to start experimenting, check out this blog post on the type of content that does well on Story feeds. This article was written specifically for Snapchat, but the advice on what to post can also be applied to Instagram and Facebook Stories. Story on!