The Death of the Feed? Instagram’s Feed vs. Stories Dilemma
Last week Facebook announced that Stories features on Instagram and WhatsApp are hitting 300 million users (while Snapchat is lacking behind with 173M active users in the entire app). That’s massive, and with Instagram's user experience, its posing one big question: Which user experience will stay on the platform - will it be the feed scrolling experience, or the full-screen, stories skipping experience.
Ignoring Snapchat for now due to its plateauing growth, Facebook has launched its stories formats pretty much everywhere - Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. And while the first two integrations are not really popular - and you get a very small part of your friends really viewing - Instagram, and supposedly even WhatsApp, are smashing successes!
If you have an account of 3.000 followers, you will easily get 25 - 30% of your audience watching your stories. Influencers typically get more than that, brands get a bit less (depends on the brand).
Now stories are obviously for the most super-active users out there. Some people and brands don’t even publish stories - so this organic view rate of 10 - 25% is likely to decrease with more people publishing stories, but still - I find myself reading the stories first, and finding that core audience a bit more.
One influencer who has about half a million followers has reach in the feed of 250 000, and stories get over 50 000 views. But of course - a view is a bit more than reach in this case - a bit more of a loyal use-case. Reach as defined by Facebook might just be the fact that the user scrolled past your post.
Instagram has been pushing the stories not only on the top, but also moving it into the middle of the feed - which clearly shows Instagram is trying to funnel more users into the Stories function - and they even expanded it into small preview.
Scrolling vs. Flicking
The question is - you really can’t have 2 massively different user experiences, and each are obviously evolving in their own way. Stories is sort of a core audience with a lot of messaging and reaction features and you flick and click through them.
The feed is more a lean back experience where you scroll, and in my opinion.
38% of users use Stories on Instagram - Where will this land?
Clearly, feed still reaches a bit more people - Stories is still relatively new to some of the audiences, but its clearly catching huge traction. Facebook says 300M people use Stories on Instagram, this would mean 38% (or a bit over 1/3) use Stories, that means roughly 2/3 don’t yet use stories at all. Here based on this data we can make the conclusion that Instagram Stories are for those core audiences, while Instagram Feed is for everyone.
The issue of having 2 completely separate user experiences is, that it must converge at one point. The majority of the users that don’t use it today might not like consuming through stories, and there might need to be a feed which is a hybrid Stories + Feed hybrid, which will be a massive challenge to visualize and onboard the mass of users.
Another opportunity here is the stories super-aggregator. Since Facebook owns the main 4 platforms, it could brand the stories as the core platform that wins (Instagram), and make sure content runs (under control, user choice) across all 4 platforms, as its hard to republish on different platforms - really striking a final blow to Snapchat.
In the meanwhile, for businesses, marketers, and influencers - it’s important to realize that Stories include your core audiences - and work with it.
Founder at Kahootz Media | Managing Partner at Kahouze | CMO
7 年Stories are currently bridging the gap on how we produce and consume content. Accessible to almost anyone, some cool features, and in terms of engagement they are leading the way. Disappearing feature is a stroke of genius (albeit Snap pioneered it). It's great because it is increasing participation and engagement. People aren't spending 3 days to get the perfect story, they're going with the flow and that adds to the authenticity - similar to what someone else hinted at above. Great post and topic of the moment!
H U M A N & INDUSTRY 5.0 FOUNDER
7 年Face to face communication is losing against the screen to screen, so as the emotional aspects of human lives and businesses. This cause the disturbing downturn of ability to establish H2H communication understandable to all. I am happy new generation of leaders see the wrong direction and try to change it.
Digital Designer, Marketing Professional, Branding Expert, and Augmented Reality Developer
7 年Being a content creator this is a huge no-no to publicly admitting this but, I absolutely HATE disappearing content. As a content creator I put in time and effort into content, only to have it disappear 24 hours later is just awful.
Bekerja smart tanpa mengenal waktu dan honor
7 年https://www.restosukses.com
Brand Strategist @ Juniper Networks | Brand Management | Brand Marketing | Brand Governance
7 年I believe that Instagram’s feed is still the place for curated content for even the general user to brand themselves whether that's presenting oneself as a globe-trotter, posting pictures by the most beautiful worldly sites or the most giving person you can find on Instagram, posting pictures of their trip to Africa to help with impoverished communities. Stories are more of a enhancement which is why I like how Instagram has implemented them. Instagram is heavily curated and stories allow users to maybe let loose for a bit and not worry about looking absolutely perfect.