In August 2018 Instagram celebrated the second anniversary of perhaps the most beloved feature for its users – the Story! In only two years, this feature attracted as many as 400 million daily active users, thus making the number of monthly Instagram active users cross the barrier of 1 billion! And Gram Stories feature is sure to stay long with us, perhaps as long as Instagram exists, i.e. forever (at least we hope so)!
Today nearly all brands implement Stories in their Instagram marketing strategies. And if you plan to do the same, you must clearly understand that users perceive and use Stories and Feed posts in thoroughly different ways. Moreover, they are driven to both formats for different reasons, as well. Today InstaBF, a credible Instagram and IGTV provider, will reveal which is better for your brand.
Insta Feed vs Insta Stories: The Experiment Setup
To find out whether Instagram Stories are more beneficial for a social media brand or the Insta feed, first of all, you need to set up an experiment. As Gram Story, it’s possible to post a set of images, or 5-15-seconds-long videos with the best 9:16 portrait ratio. For a brand, it’s better to opt for the video format, as the Gram Stories feature allows no text or headline addition to the visuals. Videos are perhaps better at conveying information. And then you need to create two Instagram ordinary posts – one with ad text and one without it. Once all these are set, start tracking the number of leads, as well as the cost per lead that each type of your experiment methods brings. This is the major goal for any Instagram campaign, isn’t it?
Insta Feed vs Insta Stories: The Hypothesis
Depending on your Instagram business type, you may have a certain hypothesis even prior to setting up the experiment. In some cases, you might expect poor conversion rates for Stories (if you have a B2B Insta business, for instance). In other cases, you could be certain Stories would work the best (i.e. for ordinary consumer offers). But don’t hurry with the conclusions until you have facts.
Once you have certain results, you can compare them and determine which is more beneficial for particularly your business.
Insta Feed vs Insta Stories: General Takeaways
After you have carried out your experiment and found out particularly what works for you the best, most probably you will come to the following conclusions:
- Instagram feed posts accompanied by ad text will outperform Stories for pest per conversion. But if you use the same post yet without the ad text, the CPA of the Story will be higher.
- Instagram Stories bring higher CTR, yet lower CPC thus sending more traffic to a website. Perhaps the reason is that one can’t convey enough information in the Story ad.
- The choice between the Gram News Feed and the Stories mostly depends on the type of your offer. Simpler offers such as sales are better delivered through Insta Stories.
Don’t be afraid to test new things. If you haven’t yet used Gram Stories to promote your products, you risk getting caught out once this feature starts overtaking the newsfeed for organic posts. Devote at least 10% of your advertising budget to Stories and find out, what a profit it may bring to you. Just remember that this feature demands more creative resources, a unique approach to the task, as you have only up to 15 seconds to attract your audience through such a powerful tool as Instagram Story!