Today I am taking a look at a new software called Insta Stories

(first watch my interview with product creator Mario Brown below)

 

 

Ill be honest I am not a very trendy person and because of that I do not have much experience with Instagram, though I do know it is a super popular mobile platform with something like 700 million active users. Because of this when I first heard of Insta Stories I thought it was some kind of spinning software or automatic writing software. My confusion came from the fact that I did not understand what a Instigram story is.

When I think of Instagram I think of pictures, and that is largely what it is, a collection of picture posts. However they also have what they call stories. A story is different from a picture in that it is a short video (less than about 20 seconds normally) and also that generally stories only last for 24 hours or so before they are auto deleted. You can also run stories as ads, basically video ads, except if it is an ad it is of course not auto deleted after a day, it will last as long as the ad is run.

Once I realized what stories where I realized how powerful they could be. In fact there are two ways that you can use them in general:

First: You can use them similar to normal posts, only since they are videos you can engage your Instigram followers in a way like never before. This is going to be super valuable for anyone with a decent Instagram following. Especially so if your following is over 10,000 because at that point you can make your stories ‘clickable’ (technically they swipe since its a mobile platform) and have the video link to any website you want.

Second: You can run stories as ads. This is something you can do from right inside of Facebook (since Facebook owns Instagram). With this method you can target specific people based on location or interest. Also with this method you automatically can make your video ‘clickable’ without the 10,000 follower requirements.

Of both of these methods perhaps the most powerful is going to be the second. I say this because with the ad route you do not need a large following. Also with ads you can really target your audience. Because of this I think that Instagram stories is going to be super powerful for marketing for offline business’s and for people who work with offline business’s. With Instagram stories you can target people just in the businesses service area because its a video ad you can engage them like never before.

Imagine a restaurant having a Friday night ‘blue plate’ special running an stories ad that only shows to people within 5 miles of their location telling them about the special.

In my area right now its super cold, and most people use oil heat. Imagine a provide of heating oil running a Facebook story telling only people in their service area that new customers can get 10% off their first oil delivery.

These are just two examples right off the top of my head. But they illustrate the power of combining the huge Instagram followers, with the geo-targeting capabilities of Facebook ads, and the power of stories videos.

But of course for this to work you have to have a video. A video that is optimized for a mobile device. Because the video must play well on a mobile device a lot of the existing video creators and templates are not going to be idea, so the only  real option was to record a video from your phone and use that for your story. Well this might be ok if your just making a post to your followers, but if your running any kind of ad, or doing work for a local clients, a quick unedited video shot with a cell phone is not going to cut it. Its not going to be professional enough.

This is where InstaStories comes into play. Its a first of its kind video creator that is designed specifically for Instagram stories video posts and ads. Its super easy to use. Comes with 40 templates, is fully customisable, and perhaps best of all it lets you create unlimited videos when you pay a one time (quite low in my opinion) fee. With InstaStories anyone, regardless of their technical skill level can make high quality videos for use with Instagram stories, and this is important because if you want to get treated like a professional, to get the results of a professional, you had better look like a professional (see interview for a demo). With InstaStories you can post Instagram videos that make you look like a high end company.

I think its obvouse that I like InstaStories. Its a easy to use video creator designed to let people take advantage of a huge opportunity. While Im sure anyone can find it useful it is going to be particularly valuable to anyone who owns or works with offline business’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 A quick note about the reviews I do on this site. The product vendors give me access to their products for free in order for me to do my review. However I make no promises to them regarding the results of my tests or what I will write in my review. Should you click a link that takes you to a sales page for a paid product for sale this link will be an affiliate link and I will be paid a percentage of the sales price should you decide to invest in it.