How to Create Engaging Facebook Stories

A Facebook story is a new visual way to publish a post on Facebook and is very similar to Instagram stories. A Facebook story can be a series of photos, videos or animations and once posted, they disappear after 24 hours.

Facebook stories appears to be a feature that s here to stay as there are 150 million daily active users and there are no signs that it will slow down.

Once posted, Facebook stories appear on the top right hand side of your Facebook newsfeed, they have a blue ring around the profile picture of the person who published the story.

In order to create a Facebook story when using using Facebook for business, you will need to install the Facebook app on your phone.

When you do, login to your Facebook account through the Facebook app, and you’ll notice a bar right at the top of your newsfeed with other people’s Facebook stories.

Right next to other people’s stories, you’ll also notice a plus sign on your profile picture and when you click on it, it will allow you to create and publish your story. When you do, follow the prompts that ask you permission to access your phone’s camera and microphone.

Alternatively, you can create Facebook stories from Facebook messenger. Simply install the Facebook messenger app on your phone, and when you login to Facebook messenger, you’ll be able to click on the plus sign where it says “your story”, at the top of your Facebook messenger inbox.

Although your Facebook story disappears after 24 hours, you still have the option to save your story for future use.

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There are many benefits to creating Facebook stories as a Facebook marketing strategy. The first benefit is the fact that they appear right at the top of people’s newsfeed, which is prime real estate unlike posts that can be buried among many other posts.

The second benefit of Facebook stories when using Facebook for business is that they disappear after 24 hours which means you can use them to promote your business, products, services or events without cluttering your Facebook profile or your Facebook page with promotional posts.

Another benefit of using Facebook stories for your Facebook campaign is that they can be much more engaging than standard posts because they are visual and you can add different types of effects and filters which makes your content much more interesting to viewers which is handy when selling on Facebook.

Plus, because Facebook stories disappear after 24 hours it incentivises people to watch your story to avoid missing out because they are time sensitive.

Lastly, including Facebook stories as part of your Facebook campaign will benefit you greatly because people prefer consuming content from brands in the Facebook stories format because they come across as more real, more authentic, more informal than standard posts.

In order to create engaging Facebook stories for any Facebook campaign, you’ll first need to decide what your goal is. Your goal could be to increase your brand awareness, increase engagement, grow your audience, drive more traffic or generate sales when selling on Facebook.

Based on the goal you have for your Facebook marketing strategy, you will be able to shape your Facebook stories strategy.

To create engaging Facebook stories, you first need to take advantage of all the difference features available that allow you to enhance and customize your story. One of them is filters, Facebook allows you to choose among a wide range of filters to turn your pictures and videos into more eye catching visuals.

Other features include location stickers, time stickers, GIF stickers, name stickers, and poll stickers. So if relevant you can use any stickers to entice people to engage with your story further.

For example, you can use the poll sticker to ask people for their opinion or answer a question. Alternatively, you can add a location sticker to state the location of where your story took place.

Facebook stories also include the ability to draw on them by offering different pen styles and the ability to add text to stories with a choice of different text fonts so your story can be understood visually even without sound which is useful when selling on Facebook.

Therefore, with the wide range of tools available to enhance your story when using Facebook for business, make sure you take advantage of some, to make your Facebook stories much more attention grabbing, but don’t go overboard as you don’t want to clutter your Facebook stories too much either.

If you’d like to take your Facebook marketing to the next level, and increase the results you’re getting from your current Facebook marketing efforts by 10, click here to download my FREE Facebook marketing report. Simply enter your name and email and I’ll instantly send you the report.

Another Facebook marketing strategy for creating engaging Facebook stories is checking your Facebook analytics. Facebook allows you to track the performance of your Facebook stories by showing you how many people have viewed each story.

To check your Facebook analytics, simply click on the eye symbol at the bottom left hand side of your story and keep track of the number of viewers.

By keeping track of your Facebook analytics, you’ll be able to notice a pattern of what type of story appealed the most to people and therefore create similar types of stories in the future.

Another way to create more engaging Facebook stories is by testing different types of content for your stories.

Some of your Facebook stories could be educational content, such as sharing some tips and insights relevant to your audience.

For example, if you’re in the golf industry, your Facebook story could share tips on how to improve a golf swing. If you’re in another industry, such as the weight loss industry, your Facebook story could be weight loss recipes for example.

Another popular type of Facebook story is behind-the-scene footage and pictures to humanize your brand. In other words, Facebook stories can act as an informal way to introduce members of your team in a more casual setting and provide an opportunity for people to learn more about you personally.

Another type of Facebook story you could share is information about something you’d like your audience to check out.

For example, if you published a blog post you’d like people to check out, your Facebook story could be a summary of your blog post with a call-to-action inviting viewers to read the whole blog post.

Another type of Facebook story you can create is a display of your products with demonstrations on how they work and what they do. This can be a good opportunity for people to discover your products in a more fun and engaging way.

For more ideas on how to come up with good Facebook story ideas, watch the stories of your competitors or the stories of people in the same industry as you. If you notice that some types of stories tend to perform better, then try to create similar ones for your business.

If you’d like to take your Facebook marketing to the next level, and increase the results you’re getting from your current Facebook marketing efforts by 10, click here to download my FREE Facebook marketing report. Simply enter your name and email and I’ll instantly send you the report.

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About the Author

Corinna Essa

Corinna Essa is known internationally as the go-to person when it comes to social media marketing.

Corinna owns a social media marketing company helping businesses around the world leverage the power of social media without doing any of the legwork. Her company has been featured in many media outlets including Sky Business news, Working Women magazine, Ymagazine, Tasmanian Times, Channel 7 and 101fm.

Corinna is also the author of 2 bestselling books “Money On Demand – The 16 Fastest Ways to Becoming a Millionaire Online” and “Reach: The SECRETS to converting your social media audience into your network marketing downline fast”