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Why ephemeral content needs to be in your social media strategy

You know Instagram Stories? That's ephemeral content. And while most social media strategies focus on long-form feed content to achieve its goals, ephemeral content should be considered a must-have.

An image of a phone creating an Instagram Story.

At a top level, consistently showing up with ephemeral content can help increase brand awareness by creating a regular touchpoint with your audience and keep you top of mind.

And if your brand is top of mind with your target audiences, you are more likely to achieve your goals.

What is ephemeral content?

Ephemeral content refers to posts that disappear after 24 hours.

The format was first introduced by Snapchat in 2013 and has since been incorporated by Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok.

In this piece, I’ll be focusing on Instagram Stories.

A study by HubSpot found that around 43% of social media users watch Stories more than other types of video content on Instagram.

Think about when you log onto Instagram… where do you head? Straight for the Stories, or do you start scrolling the feed?

Five reasons why your business should use ephemeral content

Stories are a great way to boost engagement through the use of polls, questions and stickers, in what is a low-pressure environment (a simple click that disappears after 24 hours).
Ephemeral content allows you to show the human side of your business through more authentic, less produced content.
Whether it’s to a product page for sales, an event sign up, or an email list – you can use Stories to drive your audience to a destination for you to convert.
You can directly interact with users on a one-to-one basis through Stories, and are able to generate an immediate response or action, if required. Think product feedback.
Not everyone wants to consume feed posts every time they’re on Instagram. We’re in a world where people love short form content, and that’s exactly what ephemeral content is. Give your audience what they want.

All of that will help you create FOMO (fear of missing out) with your audience and build a community around your brand, which is social media gold.

Are you taking advantage of Instagram Stories? Make an enquiry with me to add ephemeral content to your social media strategy.

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