The Power of Instagram Stories

In the world of social media the popularity of platforms rises and falls. Last year the social media darling was Snapchat. In 2018 Instagram, and especially Instagram Stories, has become a marketing force.

Why is Instagram a Marketing Powerhouse?

Instagram has become indispensable to many marketers for the usual reasons--it's large and it's effective in reaching and motivating attractive target audiences. Some 2018 statistics to back that up:

• It has 1 billion active monthly users as of mid-2018. Yes, that's billion with a b!
• Its growth is expected to continue, as compared to Facebook, Twitter and even Snapchat, all of whose growth in number of accounts has plateaued.
• Instagram users spend an average of 53 minutes each day on the Android version of the app.  
• Of primary importance to marketers, it is the platform of choice of 18 - 34 year-old consumers worldwide, a notoriously hard to reach demographic.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/248769/age-distribution-of-worldwide-instagram-users/

• 1/3 of US mobile users are on Instagram.
• 25% of US mobile male users are on the platform. 
• 40% of US mobile female users are on it. Note that worldwide slightly more men than women are on the platform,
• Their usage is formidable:
• 22% of users log in to Instagram at least once each day.
• 38% check their account multiple times each day.
• 63% of US teenagers use Instagram daily.
• 34% of US Millennials use the platform daily.
• 72% of users have purchased a product they saw on Instagram.

Instagram is a Proven Business Platform 

 

As users have flocked to Instagram, brands have followed them there. The platform works equally well for global brands and small local businesses. And it does work. According to Hootsuite's aggregation of stats:

• 16.71% of businesses use Instagram; there are 17.25 million business profiles on the platform.
• It has 18.2 million monthly advertisers.
• 19.8% of users follow at least one business.
• 60% of users discover products there.
• 75% of users take some kind of action like visiting a product's website.
• In a single month 1/3 of Instagram users purchased a product using a mobile device making them 70% more likely to purchase from a mobile device than non-users.
• Instagram has a 2.2% interaction rate, higher than competing platforms.
• In a single month in 2017 50% of Instagram business accounts produced at least one Story.

What Are Instagram Stories?

If Instagram is a marketing powerhouse Instagram Stories is the feature that is propelling its current growth. Instagram Stories is a feature that allows users to post photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours. Snapchat was the first to introduce Stories in 2013 and now Facebook offers the feature also. Instagram quickly outstripped the popularity of both Facebook and Snapchat stories among the key young adult demographics.

Once the Stories feature has been activated on the app, all the content posted during a 24-hour period is shown in chronological order. Content from the user's camera roll can be included. The story appears on a bar at the top of the creator's page. Stories can be shared with other users but there are no likes or comments. Stories also offers a number of engagement features--stickers, locations, hashtags and polls appear to be the most popular. In order to access these features the user must convert to a business profile. If you are converting a personal profile to a business profile, you may need to change some of your settings to activate all the new features. Once you have Stories operational, you can create your first Story.

Because of the ephemeral nature of Stories, sharing options are limited.  Instagram posts can be shared to a user's Story by using the paper plane icon. Stories can be reposted by accounts but only if they are tagged in another account's Stories. Reposting is useful for brands that use influencer marketing because they can include the influencer's post in their own highlights.

HubSpot lists other useful business features:

• Business that have over 10,000 followers can add links to their Stories, thereby driving viewers to their websites.
• The Highlights feature allows businesses to add a set of clips to their profile. Highlights do not disappear after 24 hours; they remain visible underneath the profile picture until the brand deletes them.

•  Instagram Stickers can be customized to increase engagement and add a call to action. See examples here.

 

 

 

How Brands Use Instagram Stories

Brands use Instagram Stories to promote their products and services in many ways, as shown in this chart from marketing services firm Launch. Their report says that Instagram is the best platform for creating viewer engagement and that brands value engagement even more than they do product awareness. Makes sense--engagement has a good chance of leading to viewer action.

Brandwatch posted an infographic with compelling reasons to use Stories and links to 30 interesting case histories. Unfortunately it's just too long to post, but here's the link. Some of their statistics are already outdated. I've been careful to use the most recent ones I could find for this post. Here are some capsules of brands who are using Stories well.

Selena Gomez. Not a brand, you say? To my mind anyone who has 144 million followers on Instagram is a brand, whether she intended it or not. And I assume this former girlfriend of Justin Bieber did intend it. I've read the Vanity Fair article on how she became the top Instagram celebrity and I still don't understand it. But that's ok because I'm not part of her target audience. She does Stories, of course; this is simply her profile picture.

Nike. Always a powerhouse in digital, there are literally dozens of  Nike Instagram accounts. Some are corporate accounts, some are retailer accounts and some may even be individual fans. This is from #Nike, which features user-generated content. I captured this shot from the Black Friday story because it has an interactive feature, a question sticker, I think. It turns out to be a post from Turkey's largest retailer of sportswear. What fun!
[accessed November 23, 2018]







Monterrey Bay Aquarium. National Geographic is far and away the leader in this space with 94.3 million Instagram followers as I write this. It has been an internet and social media giant from the beginning with its captivating photos. The Monterrey Bay Aquarium, with 'only' 253 thousand followers, shows much smaller non-profit using Stories well. Any account that can host a #SeaSlugDay has my vote. It also has my vote for having an Instagram account just for teens to post their own content for other teens. That's a great fit with their mission "to inspire conservation of the ocean" and their program "to inspire the next wave of ocean leaders" by focusing on education and development programs for children, teens and teachers.
[accessed November 23, 2018]

 Mailchimp.  When you search the best B2B Instagram marketers email marketing firm Mailchimp invariably shows up. These three screens from their Small Business Saturday Story gives a good idea of why. Interactive features promote engagement and the answer, of course, is a promo for Mailchimp's services. They have 87.7 thousand followers, which is not too shabby for a marketing services firm unknown outside the email industry. They have one service that is especially relevant--the ability to create an Instagram (also Facebook) ad directly from their platform. The process is explained thoroughly without the viewer having to create a Mailchimp account. The third resource page Create Instagram Ads in Mailchimp has a 2-minute video that would work well in the classroom. Wow!
[accessed November 24, 2018]

This is more than enough to give you the idea! A word of warning, however. It's difficult to do justice to ephemeral content in a static context. Instagram Stories beg to be shown in class. You can find good sources in the Brandwatch infographic post or a more recent article in Forbes. You can also ask your students to suggest a story. Having had some embarrassing experiences with that--both intentional and unintentional, I think--I always suggest that you have a backup ready. Or do both. Your students will give you some entertaining examples; you can add the digital strategy aspects. However you choose to present Instagram Stories, I think both you and your students will enjoy it!

Related Updates
How not to do Instagram video--Dolce&Gabbana

Safety of Connected Gifts - Holiday 2018

Mozilla just released its 2018 'Privacy Not Included' Report and I made a post about it on my data privacy blog. It's a good resource for you and for your students.

It has a tie-in with another subject that could make for a good class discussion--the subject of brands that are sustainable because of their sense of purpose and social responsibility. Here's one good reference with some useful links.

Is social sustainability just a fad or is it the wave of the future? It is a subject that is important to younger consumers and a classroom discussion that specifically includes the concept should be interesting.

Is Data Privacy Most Important Concern for Americans?

There seems to be little doubt that the security and privacy of their personal data is important to Americans, and it is becoming more so every day (or maybe every data breach!). This has been an important subject in the textbook from the beginning and these are important findings that look forward to the future of the topic and build on content in Chapter 17.

Is Data Privacy the Top Concern?

Americans' concern about privacy has been tracked from the early days of the internet. EPIC has a page Public Opinion on Privacy that chronicles studies back as far as 1990 and has links to the most important ones from the present back to 2011. It's a tremendous resource. But what is the status of the concern at present?

http://bit.ly/2AYwZyg

The Harris Poll has conducted two surveys recently, the first for IBM and the second with Finn Partners. The April 2018 study found a big gap between what customers want from the firms they do business with and what those firms actually provide as shown in the graphic. Specifically, the respondents replied as follows:

• 75 percent will not buy a product from a company – no matter how great the products are – if they don't trust the company to protect their data;
• 73 percent think businesses are focused on profits over addressing consumers' security needs;
• 73 percent indicated it is extremely important that companies quickly take proper actions to stop a data breach; and
• 60 percent are more concerned about cybersecurity than a potential war.

Harris conducted a second study with Finn Partners in conjunction with the introduction of their Societal ROI Index. That's an interesting subject that should resonate with students; more about the Index later.

http://bit.ly/2SXhsWy

• The global study extracted the American data to confirm that data privacy was once again the most important societal concern for the US respondents, as the graphic shows. However, privacy ranked only 6th on the list of concern on which businesses are having a positive impact.
• Access to healthcare was second on the list of concerns. Respondents ranked healthcare 4th on the list of positive business impact.
• They ranked job creation first in terms of where business was having a positive societal impact. Job creation was 5th on their list of concerns.

 

 

 

Are Businesses Losing the Battle for Trust?

The third graphic doesn't answer that question directly, but the data on 2017 data breaches provide a strong implication. If data privacy is most important to customers and the war on data breaches is being lost, the trend is clearly in the wrong direction. Consider the number and growing magnitude of these data breaches in 2017.

 https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2018

The survey confirmed that there is a rising national sentiment of anxiety as relatively few consumers trust that their data is secured by the organizations that manage it. Specifically, the survey revealed that 78 percent of U.S. respondents say a company’s ability to keep their data private is extremely important but only 20 percent completely trust organizations they interact with to maintain the privacy of their data.

The online survey of 10,000 global consumers also found that:

• 69 percent said it is extremely important that companies are accessible in the wake of a data breach;
• 73 percent indicated it is extremely important companies quickly take proper actions to stop a data breach;
• 75 percent will not buy a product from a company – no matter how great the products are – if they don’t trust the company to protect their data;
• 73 percent think businesses are focused on profits over addressing consumers’ security needs

The Freedom House report on the status of internet freedom in 2018 has a great deal more important data and I'll also return to that later.

The Important Take-Aways

There are many important things going on here, but these are the two top takeaways:

1. The tsunami of data breaches goes on and, in spite of corporate efforts, it hasn't yet shown any evidence of abating. The breached data leads to identity theft. Even more broadly, it leads to fear of identity theft among the general public. If brands are letting their identities be stolen, how can customers trust them?
2. Another issue with great potential long-term impact is emerging--the expectation held by many consumers, especially younger ones, that corporations will act in the best interests of society, not just in their own best interests. 

          According to USA Today: Americans believe that companies should have a mission that goes    beyond the money—one that has a positive impact on world hunger, job creation and education, according to the latest Harris Poll data. . .  "When it comes down to it, people want companies to address the issues that they struggle with every day like safety, security and health," said Amy Terpeluk, a senior partner at Finn Partners. "Companies that address these needs can build their reputation and in turn strengthen their business."

 These are profound shifts in the business landscape and students need to think about the ways in which they will prepare to deal with them.

Related Updates
Changes in privacy expectations, US and UK