Is 24-hour content worth your time?

Social media takes time and posting content that will disappear in just 24 hours sounds like a waste of your time, but is it? 500 million people use Instagram Stories on a daily basis! So what is the benefit of 24-hour content? And what should you talk about? Let's get into it.

Which platforms support 24-hour content?

• Snapchat - the original 24-hour content platform. And although I rarely talk about it, it can be quite a powerful platform for social media marketing.
• Instagram - my favourite platform for 24-hour content. They've actually got two forms of 24-hour content: Stories and Notes. The second one is still a rolling out feature and you might not have them yet. The problem is if you don't have Notes yet, you can't see other people's Notes.
• Facebook - but it's mainly crossposted from Instagram. It's hard to build up a regular audience here but is very powerful when you do.
• TikTok - a fairly new feature for the platform. It's fair to say that Stories haven't found their foot here (yet?) but it could be a very interesting addition to the platform.
• WhatsApp - which I'll talk more about soon!

What's the point of 24-hour content?

If you think of social media as your shop window that's subtly (and not so subtly!) directing people into the shop and to the checkout area, 24-hour content is the little chat you have with those people who are browsing. Most of these conversations will be with your regulars, your biggest fans and the ones you usually have a chat with. You might talk about:

• Your special offers - whether you've got a special offer on, you've got one coming up or you've got one ending soon, you want to mention that to your regulars.
• Your big achievements - if you get an award, press coverage, new qualifications or you hit a new milestone your regulars want to celebrate that with you.
• Your small achievements - if you're excited about something in your business, your regulars are going to love seeing that excitement.
• Your mistakes - we all make them, we can usually laugh about them, and your regulars will love seeing this less-than-perfect reality.
• What makes you you - that's also what makes your business so good!

Like with all social media content, there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. You've got to experiment to find out what works best for you and for your audience. The beauty of 24-hour content is that it's not out there forever so you can get really experimental if you want to!

Being consistent with 24-hour content

Have you ever made it through everyone's Stories before you got bored and moved on to looking at a different side of social media? It doesn't happen often - especially if you're following loads of people! That's why it's important to be consistent with it.

The order Stories appear to people is designed to get them to see the ones they'll be interested in before they move on to other things. You want to be among those first Stories - and to do that, you need people to want to come back to your Stories, to not skip past them and ideally to engage with them. Posting 24-hour content once in a blue moon doesn't allow for that regular audience to build up.

Notes are a bit different, you don't have to be as regular with them, but as I say not everyone that follows you has the update to see your Notes yet.

Thanks for reading! I share a blog like this one every other Tuesday, and if you feel like they help your social media presence, and more importantly, your business - then please consider leaving a tip.

Every time this tip jar reaches ￡15, I'll run a giveaway on social media so a small business can access my membership group for two months.

Tesni xx