Let’s Set The Scene
It’s the middle of the afternoon, you’re bored at work or bored in class and you’ve scrolled through your entire Instagram feed, twice! You’ve skipped over liking your old high school classmate’s 4th baby photo of the day and you’ve already liked and commented on your crush’s dog picture. What’s your next move? Well, before Instagram launched its Story section, you were likely to switch over to Snapchat to see what all your friends and favorite celebs were up to. Not anymore! In a recent report, there are more active daily users on Instagram Stories than there are on Snapchat, 200 million as opposed to 161 million, to be exact. This means that half of the 400 million daily users are also engaging in Instagram Stories!
Influencer’s Love Instastory
Instastory is a more realistic portal into what the person behind the perfectly planned Instagram feed is up to. The Instastory of an influencer or celebrity is actively sought after by their fans. Fans feel a strong connection to influencers through their stories. Take Something Navy (Arielle Noa Charnas) for example, a New York based fashion blogger with a 1 year old baby. She consistently shares her day-to-day life through her Instastory by posting videos of her cute daughter, Ruby Lou, or sharing funny dance videos of her husband, Brandon. This builds a feeling of friendship with her fan base. More importantly, she will regularly respond to direct messages via Instastory, answering the questions and inquires from her fans. People are so enamored by her Instastories there are YouTube videos dedicated to capturing and reposting her stories!
How Can This Benefit Your Brand?
Fun fact: 92% of consumers trust recommendations from others, even people they don’t know, over branded content. This means when Arielle is filming little Ruby Lou dancing in her pajamas and then later receives a direct message from a fan asking where she got those pajamas and shares the brand with her 1 million followers via Instastory, she is now organically offering a recommendation “as a friend.” This type of social share is unmeasurable for a brand! The kind of weight and influence this recommendation receives is unprecedented in the advertising and marketing world.
Of course a sponsored post on Something Navy’s Instagram feed is valuable in it’s own right. However, it is exactly that, sponsored and could come across to fans as branded content. When Arielle shares a portion of her actual day with the products she’s truly using, that’s when fans pay the most attention, ask questions, and are motivated to purchase!
Check out how we can get your products in the Instastories of Influencers your customers care about here!