How short-format, fleeting videos are proving to be quick wins for networking platforms

‘Stories’ as a feature was introduced a while ago but it is only recently that platforms have succeeded in garnering major attention, making the social media platforms, networking and professional sites realise the immense potential of this short-lived, short-video format.

While Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook have had the same feature for years, LinkedIn and Twitter (Fleets) launched it this year. Even YouTube has ‘Stories’— short, mobile-only videos that allow creators with 10,000 subscribers or more to personally connect with their audience in a casual, in-the-moment way.

BuzzInContent.com finds out why these platforms, which anyway allow a user to share a large/short format video, are specifically more focused towards the fleeting short-format video and how inclusivity of this feature is a great value that brands can piggyback to connect with their users.

A Twitter spokesperson said the platform is testing Fleets in India to allow people to be more comfortable in sharing their light-hearted, fleeting thoughts without having to worry about the number of Likes or Retweets.

He believes Tweeting can be intimidating sometimes— public stage, public record and engagement metrics can feel performative and public replies can create anxiety among the users.

Facebook said over one billion people use Stories across their three platforms — Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — which is a humongous number and a potential consumer base to be catered by the platforms, which till recently didn’t offer something similar.

Heeru Dingra

Another reason that social media platforms might be eager to enter this content format is that with the ban on TikTok, they saw an opportunity to fill the space for a similar offering, where their users can upload casual, fun, short-format videos, said Heeru Dingra, CEO, WATConsult.

“Instagram recently revealed that their users spend somewhere between 24 and 32 minutes every day just watching stories. Obviously when they’re doing that they aren’t engaging with any other platform, hence gaining an edge over the competition by simple stories. These numbers might incentivise platforms like YouTube to finally jump on the bandwagon,” she added.

Nishant Malsisaria

Nishant Malsisaria, VP, Product Strategy, dentsu Data Sciences, said that these short-format videos are like quick wins for these platforms as they allow creators to use connect regularly with their followers layered with the magic of AR, music lip-syncing filters, etc. Short videos offer a platform to creators to go beyond just their audience and make a statement and add inclusivity with users of the platform.

Platforms are driven by users, it is important for platforms to retain and engage with their users in order to stay ahead of the curve.

Premkumar Iyer

Premkumar Iyer, Vice-President, National Operations, Gozoop, gave two key reasons why every platform has jumped on the same bandwagon.

“User behaviour on all social platforms is constantly changing and right now it’s all about how you tell your story, more so our feed is ‘permanent,’ while stories are not. Secondly, FOMO— stories generate a lot more eyeballs and engagement as compared to feeds and one major reason is stories are widely perceived to be more real and unfiltered. Platforms by nature have the habit to put ads wherever users are known to spend time and currently users are spending more time on Stories,” he said.

With the war for attention and ad revenue in full swing Stories are the latest table stacks.

He also mentioned how this format provides instant gratification and it is in human nature to be attracted to things that doesn’t require much of their time or efforts.

Ankur Pujari

Ankur Pujari, Co-Founder and Growth Lead, Hyper Connect Asia, said, “Stories give a short and informal feature for brands and individuals to share an update without affecting their timeline. So this might be a short-lived update like a sale, webinar timing, etc. The feature intuitively allows users to catch up on friends and brands quickly rather than going to their timeline.”

Shradha Agarwal

Even Shradha Agarwal, Co-Founder and COO at Grapes Digital, agreed that this feature’s attraction lies in its “snackable” nature.

But how brands can drive maximum ROI from ‘Stories’?

The Twitter spokesperson said that the feature has a lot of potential to allow brands to express their personality and establish a light-hearted or humane tone of voice. They can use planned, reactive, intuitive and participative kind of  Fleets. 

Sarfaraz Khimani

Sarfaraz Khimani, Co-CEO, Performics India, said, “The success of Instagram stories has revolutionised how social media apps increase user engagement on their platforms. In a time and age where the attention span of users is dwindling, stories demand low investment. Therefore, it is now incumbent on brands to capture attention and drive relevance.”

He added, “In our experience, working with multiple brands, making stories fast-paced, mobile screen optimised and including audio ensures performance and ROI. One out of three purchases on social media is currently driven by stories, which is only going to increase.”

Inclusivity of short-format video content is a great value that brands can piggyback to connect with their users.

“Identifying the right influencer and subtly adding the brand or product can lead to massive benefits for brands in terms of ROI,” said Malsisaria.

Stories have given maximum engagement for brands in recent times as it’s right up there on the platforms and makes it easy for low on attention user to shift through, and this becomes an opportune feature for platforms to drive ROI for brands, especially those driving commerce through social platforms, Pujari said.

A stronger and relevant CTA is the key for better ROI, but brands need to keep in mind to not just push the content on stories for the sake of it.

Iyer suggested that Stories need a separate strategy as consumption intent is totally different.

He explained, “Opportunities for brands are unlimited and it all depends on how best they can exploit the platform features. Stories are stacked on top of the screen and run on an auto mode and hence attract more attention and engagement. It also allows a brand to post more without running into the risk of spamming. With Stories, brands can promote anything be it offers, locations, campaigns, two-way interactive content, driving eye balls to generic content and drive traffic using the swipe up feature.”

The social media ‘Stories’ invariably offer the maximum engagement, which is a huge asset for any brand marketing to its audience.

Also, depending on which platform one uses to put up a story, they have many different options to casually engage their users in a conversation, like taking a poll, asking or getting asked questions, adding stickers, texts, hashtags or gifs, and so much more, Dingra said.

However, an individual who is present on all these platforms might face a difficulty in differentiating their offerings as each one of them has started to ride on similar feature.

Moreover, it’s more like a standard feature now. Most platforms have created this as a quick catch-up feature for the users.

So, how a platform can make the feature stand out in the abundance

Yes it does confuse the users, Iyer said, sometimes leading to diluting the messaging and information overkill.

“For users, it all depends on which platform they are more comfortable with and for brands a deeper look into analytics will always help them with better insights on where to focus more,” he added.

While all platforms understand the importance of latching on to this trend, Malsisaria believes that they are also trying to create a differentiator in terms of positioning.

It becomes extremely critical that the makers of the platform understand this and maintain the true essence of their platform.

While it is true that almost all the social media platforms now offer the Stories feature, but experts said that they also have defining traits that differentiate their offerings from each other.

For example, Twitter recently launched its new ‘Fleets’ feature that allows the users to post a disappearing tweet, which has the typical 24-hour expire limit similar to a story, while retaining the attributes of a tweet and remaining true to its platform.

Snapchat since long has had a ‘streak’ option that no other platform offers, adding an extra element to its feature which helps it stand out from the rest. WhatsApp Stories are an extension of its pre-existing status feature and Instagram's highlights are something that is specific to the platform.

So, it’s safe to say that all the platforms have adopted the 'Stories' in their own unique ways, enough to give the users varying experiences, said Dingra.