Facebook Stories
Facebook Stories are following the social media trends of Instagram and Snapchat.
Travel and tourism businesses can especially make use of these features, by highlighting time-sensitive deals, and behind-the-scenes content.
When you share a photo or video to your Facebook story, it can be viewed in the stories section at the top of your friends' or followers' News Feed on Facebook and at the top of your Messenger inbox. Your Facebook Stories will be visible to your selected audience for 24 hours,with photos lasting for 5 seconds at a time and videos for 20 seconds.
It's important to note that while these are the default settings, the viewer has the option to tap through stories to move to the next item more quickly, or they can press and hold on the screen to pause the story if they wish to spend more time looking at a particular photo or video.
Benefits of Facebook Stories
It is common knowledge that Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm prioritises posts from friends and family due to higher levels of engagement - this means that content from businesses will typically be bumped lower down in user feeds.
Facebook stories offer businesses the opportunity of more exposure as page followers are much more likely to see your recent story sitting at the top of your screen than they are your organic posts. Users that follow your stories regularly are eventually going to be more likely to see your organic posts as well (Active Web Group).
Facebook Stories is also perfect for sharing authentic content in real-time. This level of connection and authenticity can be incredibly powerful. In fact, 94% of consumers say they’re likely to be loyal to a brand that offers complete transparency (LabelInsight).
How can tourism businesses use Facebook Stories?
Stories on Facebook is the one feature that shows you who has viewed the content you posted. This can have a major impact on enhancing a business’ targeting strategy. Ideas for tourism accounts to post on their stories could be:
- Asking and answering interactive feedback from viewers (e.g. polls or question stickers)
- Announcements (e.g. events, changes to business/opening times)
- Behind the scenes glimpse (e.g. daily routine, restocking etc.)
- Promote other content/platforms (e.g. new blog post, sign up to newsletter etc.)