Feed & Stories: Capturing Attention and Driving Results on Instagram 

Summary

This paper discussed the differences between Instagram Stories and the Instagram Feed, and how those differences can impact how a marketer creates and uses Stories. Facebook did a quant survey with 2,400 daily Instagram users and a qual diary study with 40 daily Instagram users. Stories are preferred vs. Feed for seeing friends in real-time, and when one wants to be “playful”. The brand connections in Stories have more relevance than in Feed. Stories create inspiration and excitement whereas Feed is seen as calm and relaxing. Stories are creative and seen as the place to go for unfiltered, in the moment content. This “raw” perception can translate to business by giving consumers a behind-the-scenes, insider view of a brand. Creative learnings reflect the mobile best practices already expounded by Facebook: Use time wisely; mention the brand in the first three seconds; highlight the brand throughout the ad; and design with the end objective in mind. Facebook worked with a partner, MetrixLab, to develop a pre-testing method to score Breakthrough and Response.