January 28, 2020 Saloni Piplani

Instagram Feed VS Instagram Stories

When Instagram first popped onto the scene back in 2010, it was just like any other social platform; filled with selfies, pets, and pictures of food.

Fast-forward to 2019 and Instagram’s transformation from a simple photo sharing app to a full-on marketing channel is nearly complete.

Just look at some of the platform’s newest features!

Instagram has released dozens of new tool for businesses, including advanced analytics, shoppable Instagram posts, new ways to drive traffic from Instagram stories, and the new standalone video platform like IGTV.

Since the release of Instagram stories in August 2016, businesses have seen a positive return from utilizing this tool. On the other hand you simply want to know the difference between Instagram stories and Instagram posts in the feed

Lets dive into the differences of Instagram Feed VS Instagram Story!

One of the most obvious differences between the two is that you post a compelling story every time you post a feed.

Instagram story allows your followers to see images and videos that may not make it to your feed often. This is a perspective that viewers love to see because it provides a sense of transparency for viewers.

This can also add a personalized touch to how you engage your audience.

You can feature behind-the-scenes footage or Boomerangs (a moving picture or GIF) at Instagram story. This creates excitement and increases engagement on your page, which drives brand awareness.

Use this to share discounts and sales for your business. Instead of a mass email with coupons for your company, try to deliver the discounts through your IG Stories and see if this influences your sales and website traffic.

With Instagram stories, there is no need to provide an extensive chunk of text or captions, because of the amount of time it lasts.

instagram-stories

Source : https://follows.com/blog/2019/02/size-dimensions-instagram-stories

Here is a quick tip!

  • You have to plan out your stories correctly, it will need very minimal text to drive a message. If the viewer has to back tap or pause the story in order to read the text it may be too wordy. Try to keep the words in the story between 5-15 words per image or video.
  • You don’t have to do everything by the book when posting on Instagram stories, but you should ensure that there is a natural flow when going to the next story and that it is beneficial.

Say for instance there is an event and you want to feature it on your page, but you are unsure of how to integrate it into the flow of your feed. Instagram stories are the perfect tool to include this content.

In this way, Instagram stories are a great way to open new pathways to increase engagement and brand awareness.

Even better, they have a number of features that help you engage your audience.

Many people on social media are just passively watching, but Instagram Stories have features that help you elicit an action or verbal reaction out of them. These features include:

  • Quiz Questions
  • Polls
  • Open-ended Questions
  • Links (if you have over 10,000 followers)

On the other hand, Instagram feed is fixed, they don’t disappear.

Instagram feed is how people find you. Thanks to your photos and videos, your Instagram account is searchable on Instagram.

People will search on Instagram when they’re looking for something (example: wedding dress, vacations). They type hashtags and keywords on Instagram.

insta feed

Source: https://thepreviewapp.com/insta-stories-instagram-feed-one-better/

This goes hand and hand with planning, but also you have to think about the fact that when a new follower reaches your profile the first thing they see is your feed.

Putting extra time & thought into it is important. You can use the same editing style in your pictures to show a seamless and more uniform flow to your feed or use a color scheme.

This will ultimately make your feed more aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

Truly, it’s about finding your own unique feed aesthetic and style in order to start branding yourself.

Then people will scroll through Instagram posts to find what they’re looking for and it’s possible that your brand might appear in the search results.

Your posts stay longer than you Insta stories.

Instagram feed can range from sharing others’ content (with permission of course) to anything that you and your followers’ might find interesting.

So, there you go. If you ever caught yourself scratching your head thinking what to use more- feed or story, then you must be clear about the two different approaches and their purpose. These are two completely different tools within Instagram.