Instagram Stories Release New Ad Formats

News link:
Instagram Stories and Snapchat Release New Ad Formats, Facebook Live Rolls Out More Features


-Instagram Debuts Full-Screen Ads in Stories and New Stories Metrics

After adding the "story" feature like Snapchat, yes...Of course Instagram is doing so. Although it seems that Instagram just copied Snapchat to launch this feature, we can not ignore the fact that Instagram story is becoming more and more successful and gaining daily users very fast. Instagram has some advantages over Snapchat, and more brands have Instagram accounts before they have Snapchat. Its story also adds some unique features such as "@" and Boomerangs to make itself slightly different from Snapchat and more interactive.

Instagram organic reach declines in 2016, which means brands' post frequency increased but interactions from followers declined. Brands therefore need to adjust strategies to drive engagement. Comparing to building brand content on its official account, this new feature opens a window to increase brand engagement. The ad content in stories is extremely important, since users can skip it at any minute when they are interrupted by the ads. Creating seamless and immersive content that can attract users in the very first second becomes crucial. Another important thing for brands using story ads is we need to keep in mind that, driving clicks to sites is always one of the goals. No matter how good the storytelling is in the ads, it only presents for a short period of time, and consumers are lazy to check it afterwards. Instagram enables brands to leverage its interactive feature, and a strong call to action to drive users to visit the brands' sites or official account can help achieve conversion.