
Social media stories – short videos that expire after 24 hours – are a great way to build engagement. By creating a sense of immediacy and “behind-the-scenes” exclusivity, your brand’s social media stories help your audience connect to your business on a more personal level and allow you to gain insight into their interests and questions.
It’s almost counterintuitive to create social media content that will only be around for 24 hours. Why would anyone spend time on that?
Social media stories – the brief, casual, and entertaining videos and photos that stay online for a day and then vanish – are actually a great marketing tool that can generate a level of engagement way beyond what most people think possible.
But how? How does something that only lasts 24 hours drive high-value audience engagement?
Like most things, it’s all about how you use it.
Social Media Stories vs. Posts
If you log onto your Facebook profile and start scrolling back, you’ll soon realize that every single post you’ve ever made is still out there, lurking in the dark recesses of your feed.
One of the values of social media posts is that they’re persistent. You can always revisit old content, post updates that reference the original, and allow your audience to scroll back through to learn more about your business.
Stories are different. Since they disappear once 24 hours have passed*, it’s not always easy to see their value. But it’s there; you just have to think about it differently. Stories aren’t where you sell your products or services—they’re where you sell your company.
*Actually, it’s not quite that simple, but we’ll get back to that.
The Role of Social Media Stories
Where do you prefer to shop? At the massive big-box store with dozens of hectic employees, or at the small local shop where the owner is behind the counter, and the handful of workers know you by name? That individual, personal connection is a significant sales driver for a pretty apparent reason. We like doing business with people we know and trust.
That’s where stories come in, as a place where you and your business can begin making those personal connections.
Stories are where you can showcase the people who make your business possible. When you start posting stories about the “real life” of your business, you personalize the entire operation. When you share the tiny day-to-day interactions between your employees or between them and your customers, you build a company persona that is open, inviting, and hospitable.
They may seem frivolous, but these little glimpses of life behind the scenes are marketing gold. People view them as highly authentic and highly organic and get a sense of being a “company insider” when they begin seeing your stories in their feeds.
How to Use Social Media Stories
There are a few ways to leverage social media stories effectively, but the main thing to remember is that these tactics are all built around creating engagement. You usually won’t make sales directly from a story, but you’ll be creating a more engaged audience that’s inclined to become loyal customers and further cement your relationship with existing customers.
Behind the Scenes Stories
Share your company culture with your audience by making stories about things that happen in and around the workplace. Does someone on your team have an impressive skill that they like to show off? Are the first few minutes of your morning meeting usually a laugh riot? Do a couple of folks on the team have a friendly rivalry going on?
People love to see human beings acting like human beings. When we can see that the people we’re doing business with have the same interests, routines, and interactions that we do, it’s a huge boost to our confidence in a company’s ability to connect with us.
Events and Special Occasions
The Georgia National Fair has partnered with M&R for several years now. A significant part of our marketing work for the regional event includes creating and posting stories to the Fair’s social media accounts during the event itself.
From capturing live reactions of people trying new foods to showing off the thrill of that first hill on a roller coaster, our stories from the Fair are always incredibly high performers. During the 2024 Fair, M&R posted 386 stories, which led to:
- 397,176 views
- 370,644 unique users reached
- 1,532 likes
- 500 shares
- 857 profile visits
- 271 link clicks
- 1,265 sticker taps
By tapping into the sense of excitement that events create and posting several such stories while the event is still going on, you can make a strong sense of FOMO among your audience. After all, the people in your videos are having a blast! Shouldn’t everyone come down to join in the fun?

Interactive Stories
Stories also offer an excellent opportunity for interaction. Polls and Q&As are easy, effective ways to establish a fun, casual interaction between your team and your audience.
Polls
Your audience has feedback for you; all you have to do is ask for it. What colors do they want to see in your new line of sneakers? Do they like lace-ups or slip-ons? Do they think your logo looks better on the tongue or the back of the shoe?
Or, maybe you aren’t looking for audience research. Polls that don’t directly impact your products can be even more engaging (and can give you some unexpected audience insight). For instance, ask your audience what they’re listening to right now. That doesn’t sound like an essential question for a shoe company, but it gives you excellent marketing insight into the pop culture trends that absolutely influence fashion trends.
Q&As
Folks love getting a chance to ask questions. Just look at any AMA (ask me anything) thread on Reddit – people want inside information about your business, products, services, and even employees. A Q&A story encourages users to submit questions that you then answer in a later story.
Just like polls, these stories have a couple of uses. One, they’re incredible engagement drivers, tapping into people’s innate curiosity. The other is that they give you an idea of your audience’s questions so that you can answer them on your website, blog, social media, and other platforms.
Let’s Go to the Highlights: Stories That Stick Around
Stories typically only live for 24 hours before they vanish. But sometimes, you have a story that needs to be available to your audience for longer than a day. Enter highlights!
Social media platforms that offer stories or a similar feature also include a “highlights” section that allows you to select specific stories and keep them online until you delete them. If a story is getting notable traffic, conveys a value prop in a particularly effective way, or is otherwise still producing value when its 24 hours are up, you can tag it as a highlight.
Even better, your highlights can be categorized (see our own Instagram page for an example). When you combine all of your team-focused highlights into one category and your behind-the-scenes highlights into another, your audience can flip through the highlights in the category that best fits their place in the sales funnel.
Ready to Start Telling Your Stories on Social? Call Today and Ask About Our Comprehensive Social Media Management Packages: 478-621-4491
Your social media stories are just one small part of your overall marketing mix. When you’re ready to let our digital marketing experts help you turn your social media into an engagement juggernaut, we’re ready to get started! Call today and find out how M&R can manage your social media stories and posts, as well as every other marketing need your business has!
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