The growth of Stories across all of Facebook’s assets has been impressive. As of now, there are 150 million daily users on Facebook and the company is beginning to test advertising on the service. There are also 400 million on Instagram using Stories — where ads are already available — and another 450 million use WhatsApp Status, this app’s version of Stories.
The Growth of Social Media Stories
Stories and Status are so popular because they let you share and communicate visually with your audience. Whether images or videos, you can share content with your group all at once or individually by seamlessly fitting with the browsing experience of the user.
For small businesses this means increasing brand awareness, driving sales, improving engagement and promoting products and services.
This type of flexibility gives users, including businesses, the ability to launch personalized marketing to their followers or target audience. According to Facebook, one-third of the most viewed stories on Instagram are from businesses.
So it was only a matter of time before ads became available on Facebook Stories. In the release announcing the new numbers for Stories, the company said soon users will be able to run ads on the Facebook version as well.
If you already have ads on Instagram, the post says you will be able to repurpose the assets and share them in stories across its different platforms.
According to Facebook, businesses can now engage with potential customers as they are sharing and discovering the things they are interested in.
Results of Advertising on Instagram Stories
Facebook gave three examples of companies which experienced noteworthy results from the campaigns they launched on Instagram Stories. Even though the examples given are all large companies, small businesses can localize their campaigns and achieve good results too.
According to Facebook, in one example, Tropicana ran video ads for its summertime promotion campaign. The result was an 18-point lift in ad recall, and among males, a 15-point lift in purchase intent.
OpenTable, an online restaurant reservation platform, ran ads to drive restaurant reservations. The company saw a 33% lower cost per reservation compared to other ad formats.
The video ads run by Overstock to acquire new customers and increase sales delivered double digit returns. There was an 18% higher return on ad spend and the cost per acquisition decreased by 20%.
Image: Facebook