Social media: Why brands are telling ‘Stories’

Disappearing content — that lasts 24 hours — on social media platforms is fast edging out the newsfeed to emerge as the sought-after marketing ploy for brands to engage with consumers.

Although creating temporary content may seem counterintuitive, brands are tapping into consumers’ fear of missing out (FOMO) to promote products and build brands. According to Facebook, one billion stories are shared every day across the Facebook family of apps.

Recently, when Instagram launched the IG Music feature for Stories, food delivery app Swiggy was among the first to sample it. Swiggy put out clips of various food items and asked users to add any track from the entire IG music collection that they thought matched the clips. Swiggy then reposted the best content by users on its Stories.