In August last year Instagram rolled out their own version of ‘Stories’, similar to Snapchat in most ways but in the words of CEO Kevin Systrom, “This isn’t about who invented something. This is about a format, and how you take it to a network and put your own spin on it”. In my opinion, especially for businesses, Instagram Stories is more accessible and provides more views per video as not many companies have a Snapchat account or would add others for marketing purposes. Businesses large and small have capitalised on this and Instagram is now considered one of the best tools in the ‘new’ field of social media marketing.
The one problem with using this platform is that if you are using it to benefit your company, you have to make sure you’re using it well. We’ve been using Stories a bit lately, so I thought it would be interesting to see how it is being used by others and get some inspiration from the great accounts. What I saw was…well it was awesome! So for all you marketing whizzes out there, I’ve compiled a brief list of accounts that I thought used the Stories function to the best of their ability.
NASA – everyone should know NASA! Cool Technique: They use the Story function to delve deeper into the posts they put on their feed. Explanations in simpler, more human terms, fun graphics, awesome clips. They’re just awesome all over really!
Gary Vee – One of the world’s leading marketing 
experts, he hosts several video channels providing advice to all marketers and entrepreneurs as well as being a popular keynote speaker. Cool Technique: He mixes clips of his talks/videos with snippets of his day-to-day life in an inspiring, funny, engaging way. To anyone keen on business marketing, he’s a must see.
When I Work – An employee scheduling software company with a huge range and reach of satisfied customers worldwide. Cool Technique: They completely take advantage of their happy client base and use it to promote themselves. They send people to their clients’ workspaces and do customer shoutouts promoting the client’s business and their own – two birds with one very successful stone. Hats off to them though, doing this builds deeper customer relationships and connections, who wouldn’t want this sort of customer care?!
J.Crew – Large speciality retailer in the US. Cool 
Technique: Instead of bombarding people with more images of their products, they use the Story function to promote their blog and any new/upcoming stories. They always include links to the articles and lots of call to action buttons to make sure viewers don’t just stick to one platform, but visit all of them – now that’s clever advertising!
LOFT – Clothing outlet store in the US. Cool Technique – They turn their Instagram Stories into real life events and competitions, boosting their viewer participation through the roof. One of their recent comps included setting a hashtag and getting people to post relatable images/videos – yes I did join in, they’re too tempting not to!
So these guys were the best of the best, by my eye anyway! Give them a quick search if you’re interested, oh and give us a follow too at @digitalnoir!