Instagram dropped their release of Stories just a few days ago and we talked about it on the day of the release on the blog. After a few more days of using it, we have more thoughts on the platform.
Here are some of the positives and negatives that we have seen from the new feature from a photographers point of view.
POSITIVES
STORIES ARE DRIVING ENGAGEMENT
The list of followers can't help but look into the stories and check out what is happening there. We have been using the stories feature to ask different questions and to share our inspirations for future shoots and we have seen a lot of engagement from it.
REACH
The following that you built up from Instagram can all see the stories that you post and with the stories sitting at the very top of the page when you open, they will want to open it up especially if you have been providing some good content in there.
NEGATIVES
ARE PEOPLE STILL SCROLLING THROUGH FEEDS?
It has only been a week, but we found ourselves scrolling less through the feeds on Instagram. is it taking away from that section? Are the stories going to dominate now?
HANGS
Any time people post videos to the Instagram Stories, it seems like it hangs. It actually stops me from going through too many. Hopefully Instagram will fix that issue soon because it is getting annoying.
HOW WE ARE USING IG STORIES
We are going to keep our Snapchat, We have a feeling that the highschool crowd will still be hanging around in that space, so we want to be in that area since we are doing Senior Portraits. We just plan on using them in very different ways.
Snapchat will be our behind the scenes while we are out on location. It will be the videos that we do and everything will be fresh content from the phone.
When we use Instagram stories, we are going to use it to post photos that we have taken from the day. We will post a gallery of the photos from our session when they are up on the blog and then direct them back to the blog when we are all done. Not all the photos, but enough to make them want to check out the blog.
Sharing some inspiration has been great for engagement. We shared some photos from our pinterest board and people love it.
Remember, it is about STORIES. Tell stories! Create a story!
As a photographer, I am a storyteller and this feature is perfect. We don't have to create a story with just one photo any longer on Instagram. We can create a story of the day now.
What are some of the ways that you are sharing on Instagram stories? Are you keeping your Snapchat?