In school we are taught that copying another’s work is bad but in the social media world copying is not only allowed, it’s applauded. Instagram’s new Stories feature, announced this morning, promises “a new feature that lets you share all the personal moments of your day, not just the ones you want to keep on your profile.” Sound familiar? Read on:
With Instagram Stories, you don’t have to worry about overposting. Instead, you can share as much as you want to throughout the day—with as much creativity as you want. You can bring your business’ story to life in new ways with text and drawing tools. The photos and videos will disappear after 24 hours and won’t appear on your profile grid or in feed.
Unlike the main feed, there are no hearts or other feedback tools inside Instagram stories. But as on Snapchat, you can reply to stories with messages — here they’ll appear inside the Instagram Direct mailbox. Swipe up on your own story and you can see a list of people who have viewed your story; you can also block individual users from being able to access your story on that screen. If your Instagram account is public, your story is public, too — and you can check out someone’s public story without following them by tapping on their profile photo.
The biggest differentiator are suggested Stories, which are based on who you already follow and the topics you care about, and will be placed atop the Explore tab in the app. Other than that, it’s almost a carbon copy of Snapchat. Nonetheless, brands with already active and engaged Instagram audiences can now engage them in a way that users have shown to prefer.
