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A Complete Guide to Using Facebook Stories For Your Business
What are Facebook Stories and how can you use them to market your business on Facebook? Learn the basics of Facebook Stories and discover many ways to reach your audience with this feature.
Facebook is all about making a meaningful connection but when you're a business starting out, spreading the word about your brand requires more effort. No easier way to connect with your target audience in a fun yet meaningful way than through Facebook Stories.
What are Facebook Stories?
Facebook stories let you share content that goes live for only 24 hours. The content could be anything from photos, videos, or animations. The stories will be seen by your page followers and friends at the top of the newsfeed. This feature is similar to IG stories, and since its debut, it has made a lasting impact on Facebook users. About 500 million people are using Facebook stories, including major brands. And anytime a business shares a story, visibility jumps to 58%!
If you are ready to start sharing your brand stories on Facebook, it’s easy. One piece of advice though, be sure that the content you’re sharing is worth watching. Do away with overly-staged content and show your fun, authentic side. If people can see that there are real people behind the brand, they’re more likely to connect with the content.
How to Create Your Facebook Story Content
You can create and share your stories via your PC or through the Facebook mobile app. We suggest the latter because the options are more diverse and customized for small screens – most Facebook users use their mobile phones to access the app.
Step 1: Open the Stories Feature
Select the “+” button at the top of your Facebook page profile picture. Choose “Create Story.” You will be presented with several options for Facebook story content. Choose the content that you want to create.
Step 2: Choose Your Content
Create the content by choosing different formats from the options menu or upload pre-made content from your phone gallery (pictures, animations, videos). The options for content formats are:
Gallery: Content from your phone
Boomerang: A series of photos transformed into an animation
Text: Create a text-based content
Layout: Posting bulk images into different grids or a collage
SuperZoom: Zooming in on a subject
Poll: Conducting viewer polls, making viewers choose between two options
The top row lets you choose different stories format, but the blue camera icon allows you to record videos, pictures, or boomerangs. It also captures Facebook Live videos, which is another Facebook feature that’s popular among users.
Step 3: Customize the Story
For videos, each one should only be about 20 seconds long. You can customize the content with cute stickers, .gifs, texts, animations, or add your own text with your desired font style. You can get as creative as you like as long as the design elements fit your brand. Don’t be afraid to play with different features to make your story content stand out even more.
Step 4: Add a Custom Link or a Call to Action Button
What makes Facebook Stories different from Facebook pages is that you can embed links into the content or add buttons. These are designed to boost promotions and engage viewers. Just tap the link icon located on the right sidebar, copy-paste the link in the field, and then add a call to action button or two. That’s it!
Step 5: Share Your Story!
Once you’re done with your Story content, tap “Share Now,” and your Facebook story will be shared with your friends and followers!
Best Practices: Using Facebook Stories Properly
All About Time Sensitivity: What makes Facebook Stories such an effective marketing tool is that the content is time-sensitive. The stories are only available for 24 hours, so be sure that your content elicits a sense of urgency among viewers. This is a great marketing tool if you’re promoting a flash sale, a limited-time offer, an event, or a contest.
Interactive Content: You want your story to get people moving! You know that user engagement is high on your page when people are participating in polls, leaving comments, viewing your stories, or liking your content. You can take it a step further by asking questions, engaging with your viewers, and essentially, adding actionable buttons to drive more engagement.
Share Interesting Content: … not just your content but third-party content too. Any type of interesting, relevant content, or trending in your niche, go ahead and share it even if you didn’t create the content yourself. Just give credit when credit is due, and you’re good to go.
Track Your Metrics: You need to track the performance of your stories to see if these are helping promote your brand. Facebook lets you check out the viewers and people who interact with your content. See which of these posts are getting a lot of likes, which posts collected more comments, or which topics got the highest traffic. Also, think about the timing of your posts, what time and day are the best for posting your stories, and leverage that. By carefully studying the performance of your stories, you can adjust your marketing efforts to reap better results.
Facebook stories are a terrific way to connect with your followers and boost engagement. With these basics, you can start using this feature to its fullest! Try it today and discover all the amazing things that you can share with your target audience.
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