Which Instagram Story Formats Really Engage Viewers [New Research]

在2019年，Instagram故事打了500 million daily users。

Sincelaunching in 2016,故事的特性使得Instagram铁道部e popular than other Story and mobile video platform competitors includingSnapchat,TikTok, and its owner's own platform:Facebook Stories。

Even if you've already published a handful on branded Stories, you still might want to up your game by making them even more engaging. After all, Stories can provide great benefits related toaudience engagement, brand awareness, and even purchase-related conversions。

Despite the growing number of benefits that Instagram Stories offers brands, crafting good content still takes time, energy, and brainstorming. Even when you put your best efforts into creating a Story, you might still find that it falls flat, sees a high drop-off, or shows other signs of low engagement.

当您为2020年建立社交媒体内容策略时，您可能会问自己：“人们实际互动哪种类型的Instagram故事格式？”

To get to the bottom of which Story style is most engaging, I surveyed 350 people using清醒bob电竞官方下载软件以了解有关他们喜欢的故事格式，声音偏好和理想故事长度的更多信息。

In this post, I'll highlight what consumers said about their favorite Instagram Story formats and show you examples along the way.

Preferred Instagram Story Formats

While some brands and users post Stories focused purely on interactive features, others might post visual storytelling content such as short narratives or longer video stories that feel more like documentaries.

But, which one of the many Instagram Story formats is most intriguing to people?

我问消费者：“直到最后，您最有可能一直掌握哪个Instagram故事？”

At this point, you may have your own predictions of how people might have voted. While research says that interactive stickers, such as Quizzes, Polls, or Questions are highly engaging, you might also be thinking about the times you've tapped through an influencer or brand's behind the scenes videos via their Story. So which, ultimately did people choose?

Stories centered around Quiz or Poll stickers were one of the most popular formats with 15% of the votes. However, 35% of consumersactually喜欢与照片，文字和视频混合在一起的简短叙述。

数据源：清醒Software

Short Narrative Stories

简短的叙述基本上是为更多视觉观众翻译而来的文章。他们依靠简短的段落和书本点，伴随着相关的视觉效果，以一些有凝聚力的短幻灯片讲述一个故事。这是一个短篇小说的一个很好的例子Harvard Business Review:

This strategy is a great way to get more eyes on your blog content without asking people to leave the Instagram app.

Aside from informing your audience of a topic related to your industry, you can also take a note from HBR and other publishers by using Stories as a traffic generator. In the example above, HBR — which has a verified account — has adapted a long-form article into a short Story and included the full post at the end as a swipe-up link.

With this tactic, the Instagram Story serves as a teaser as viewers who are very interested in the topic can swipe up to read more about it on HBR.org.

Quiz or Poll-Centered Stories

Another strong Story format uses Quiz or Poll stickers. Essentially these Stories feel like they are just created to quiz the viewer by including the Quiz sticker on most pages, or brands can leverage Stories with polls primarily on each page to get their audience's insights on a topic.

这些故事吸引了观众，因为它使他们能够进行自我测试和互动地学习新主题，或者在民意调查中投票，并了解其他观众对某个主题或主题的看法。这是Hubspot的互动故事的一个示例，该故事以民意调查的测验为中心，并在最后揭示了答案。

虽然您还可以使用实际的测验贴纸，这将立即告诉观众测验问题，但HubSpot的策略也可以奏效，因为它使观众可以瞥见其他人猜测的内容，并在最后看到实际答案的消失。这可能会使观众参与，娱乐性，并在故事中持续更长的时间，如果他们知道最后一页的回报。

While fewer people voted for Stories centered around问题贴纸, this feature could still be a great feature to experiment with as it can help you interact with and learn more about your audience in a more open-ended way that Polls.

Here's an example of a Question sticker in a HubSpot Story. After this page, the Story went on to share the answers that viewers submitted.

Although open-ended Questions seem like a great way to learn about and interact with your audience, keep in mind that viewers will need to take time to fill out answers rather than simply tapping on a Poll or Quiz sticker. This means that if your audience isn't as interested in the topic or question, you might run into issues getting responses.

If you'd like to learn more about how to use and leverage the Instagram Questions sticker in your Stories, check out这个有用的指南which includes examples of brands that used the feature successfully.

Demos and Tutorials

Brands can also leverage tutorials and demos, which was the fifth most popular Story style. This tactic might be especially helpful if you're interested in ecommerce or purchase-related conversions as agrowing number of people prefer to learn more about products via video.Here's an example of atutorial from Kylie Cosmetics，首席执行官凯莉·詹纳（Kylie Jenner）在这里介绍了该品牌的新唇线笔。

故事的格式,包括演示和教程be advantageous to brands because it allows them to show off how their products work. Additionally, if you haveover 10,000 followers or are a verified user，您可以将这些故事链接到您的电子商务网站或所示产品的购买页面。这样，如果观众对教程或演示印象深刻，他们可以简单地刷新以了解有关或购买产品的更多信息。

内容的混合

Because many people don't have a preference or prefer a mix of multiple elements in Instagram Stories, be sure to add a bit of variation to your content strategy. For example, brainstorm ways to add interactive features, such as Quiz or Poll stickers to narratives, tutorials, or other types of Story content. This will add an extra layer of engaging content to a Story that might already be interesting to viewers.

Here's an example of aStory from Starbucksthat mixes in storytelling and interactive stickers to announce the return of a popular seasonal beverage:

Other Instagram Story Formats

When it came to the Story styles with lower rankings, consumers were actually less interested in behind-the-scenes content, mini-documentaries, and Stories that center around customer testimonials.

这可能会暗示，这些平台上的营销人员可能希望在Instagram故事上启动内容时更具创造力的思考。您不仅要专注于您的产品或客户推荐，还需要测试创建与您的品牌密切相关的信息简短叙述或互动故事。尽管这将吸引Instagram受众，但它也可能展示您公司在其行业中的专业知识。bob全站app

While this poll deemed a few Story formats less engaging, I still encourage you to mix things up and experiment with some of these styles just in case they work for you. Here are a few to try.

Customer Testimonials

Although customer testimonials aren't as interesting to consumers, this doesn't mean that you should scratch them entirely. In fact, they're still a commonly used tactic in many brands and industries, despite consumer preferences. For example, a number of companies, likePlanet Fitness, have built their strategy around testimonials. Here's an example:

In the above scenario, the customer testimonial strategy works for Planet Fitness because it helps gym prospects feel less intimidated and more motivated to take on physical fitness after seeing a customer's success story.

Behind-the-Scenes Stories

不，幕后故事不一定会谈论您的产品的正面和中心，但是他们可以使潜在客户了解您的公司的状况，行业的内部运作方式，以及客户可以看到客户可以可以的员工bob全站app与之合作。

Behind-the-scenes videos allow you to show off how hardworking or relatable your business might be, which might make viewers feel more comfortable working with you.

One example of a brand that uses this technique is theNBA。The basketball league regularly分享幕后专业篮球运动员的视频at games or celebrations. In the image below, they shared an Instagram Story video of basketball players taking a photo with the rapper Drake:

迷你文献

Like narrative styled Instagram content, mini-documentaries tell a journalistic story that are slightly more complex and primarily centered around video -- like a documentary that you tap through.

These are often higher-quality and incredibly informative, so they are more prominently used by publishers such as National Geographic. Here's just the beginning of a long documentary-styled Story where NatGro visits NASA's offices to uncover facts about the first moon landing:

If you're a small to medium-sized business that's just ramping up your Instagram strategy, you might want to stick to a short narrative Story, like the ones noted at the beginning of this post. These will allow you to similarly show a combination of videos, photos, and text without as much production time and effort. However, if you're a content creator or feel like covering an event or newsworthy topic in your industry might boost brand awareness, you might want to experiment with this longer-form, in-depth visual storytelling style.

Ideal Story Length

多年来，社交媒体经理一直在尝试确定完美的Instagram故事应该多长时间。这是一个主要问题，营销博客和出版物已经对此事进行了进一步的研究。

如果您是中小型业务营销人员，那么故事长度是一件有效的事情，尤其是如果您的时间或资源较低。bob体育苹果系统下载安装虽然理想地希望在整个故事中吸引低点降低的人，但如果您知道行业中的人通常只能浏览少数页面，则可能不想花时间用多页来制作多个页面。

So, what exactly is a good Story length? To get some added insight on this, I surveyed the 350 consumers and asked them, "On average, how many pages of an Instagram Story will you tap through before swiping out?"

Before looking at the results, you might think "The ideal Story should be as short as possible," simply because it's content on a fast-paced social media platform. But, then, you might also remember that a number of publications, like Harvard Business Publishing and The Washington Post have leveraged Stories as a way to share long-form content.

So, which approach is right and which is wrong?'

似乎有理想的故事长度有坚实的主题，但是，这种类型的内容中可能仍然没有理想数量的页面。

According to the poll, 63% of consumers will tap through six pages or less, with 34% saying they tap through four to six pages on average. However, more than one-third of consumers will tap through stories with more than seven pages, with 20% saying they'll tap through 10 or more.

数据源：清醒Software

The results above are similar to research published by Buffer which noted that Stories made up of七个或更少的页面是最吸引人的。但是，大部分清晰的受访者将观看超过七个页面的事实暗示，您可能不需要缩小内容即可确保看到它。

在确定观众的最佳故事长度时，我们鼓励您考虑受众的年龄段，与他们互动的主题类型以及他们的生活方式的快速节奏。如果您对观众会喜欢的好话题有一个想法，并且与互动故事功能兼容，那么您也许可以摆脱更长的故事。

If you have a topic that you worry might feel dry or too complex to explain on Stories, you might want to format this as a smaller Story with aswipe up link to longer-form content。

As you start posting regular Instagram Stories, you should also experiment with both long and short Stories. Then, look at the dropoff rate of each Story. If many people seem to drop out of one long story but not another, this might be due to the topic or the writing rather than the length. However, if people regularly drop out of your longer-form Stories around a certain page number, you might want to limit your Story content to that number of pages.

Telling an Engaging Visual Story

Regardless of what your topic you're publishing a Story about, or which format you decide on using, make sure it informs the audience about something they care about, provides entertainment value, and highlights your brand's credibility in your industry.

If you're unsure about how you can leverage Instagram Stories to better market your brand, it can be helpful to look at examples from similar companies in your industry. For a long list of Instagram Story examples from a wide variety of brands, check outthis helpful blog post.