By Max Duchaine
Instagram Stories are a great way to provide your audience a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on in your shop on a daily basis. They’re also a great way to expand the organic reach of your brand’s Instagram content by appearing at the top of your audience’s news feed, increasing the engagement rate of your content and in turn improving the visibility of your news feed posts.
How many of you are also taking advantage of Facebook’s very similar Stories feature? Data shows that while the number of daily users that view and participate in Facebook Stories content is increasing, brand pages are still slow to get on board. This is puzzling, considering brands have taken to Instagram Stories quite well and have found great success in raising the visibility of their content in doing so.
What’s more, newer changes to Instagram’s app allow brands to post Stories content to Instagram and Facebook simultaneously. No more third-party app integrations or saving and reposting. By posting to both Stories platforms at the same time, you’re not only saving time and resources, you could be tapping into a new audience stream and boosting the organic reach of your Facebook content as well.
Here’s how it works. As we’ve touched on in the past, Facebook’s algorithm shift devalued brand content so heavily that some users no longer see posts from brand pages that they’ve actively liked on Facebook. To regain that organic reach, brands had to focus on creating content that drives authentic engagement and communicates on a more sincere level. The algorithm will recognize the authenticity of this content, increasing its organic visibility and improving the brand’s organic reach.
The same principles apply to Facebook Stories. Like with Instagram, if a user views and interacts with a brand’s Stories content, they will see more of the brand’s posts within their news feed. If you start viewing and engaging with a brand’s Facebook Stories posts, you’re more likely to see that brand’s organic content in your Facebook news feed. Hence, why the Stories double-down can be a win-win for both Instagram and Facebook.
Here’s how to get started.
- Link your Facebook page to your Instagram business account. If you haven’t already done so, you’ll need to connect your brand’s Facebook page with your brand’s Instagram account. Access your profile from the Instagram app, open the menu and tap “Settings” at the bottom. Scroll down to “Linked Accounts” under “Privacy and Security.” The first option will be “Facebook.” If your page is already linked, you will see the name of the page listed to the right. If not, tap “Facebook” and follow the prompts for linking your page to your Instagram account.
- Enable Stories sharing. Once your Facebook page is linked with your Instagram account, you must enable Stories sharing. Access the “Linked Accounts” page like we did in Step 1, tap “Facebook” to open the settings for Facebook, and find the “Share Your Story to Facebook” setting. By toggling this setting, you can automatically post to both Instagram Stories and Facebook Stories from Instagram.
- Test it out. Now that we’ve enabled Stories sharing, we need to make sure everything is working properly. Return to the home screen by tapping the “home” icon in the lower left corner of the screen. Access your Story by tapping your profile icon in the upper left corner. Once your story is ready to post, you’ll see your sharing options on the bottom of the screen. If Stories sharing is enabled, you will now see a plus sign, the Facebook logo and the words “Your Stories” as an option. Tapping this will share your Story to both Instagram and Facebook.
- Change it up. If you ever don’t want to post your story to both Instagram and Facebook, you can easily change this setting by tapping the “Settings” gear icon in the upper left corner of the Stories window. Scroll down to “Share Your Story to Facebook” and disable the feature by toggling the slider. Now your Story will only be shared to Instagram.
Now that you can post to both Instagram and Facebook Stories simultaneously, I would suggest keeping track of the organic reach of your content. Make a note in your social media report of the day you begin doubling down on your Stories and see if you can measure a gradual increase in your Facebook content’s organic reach. It’s very possible, in fact, probable, that this additional exposure can lead to at the very least a modest increase in the number of eyes on your content.
Max Duchaine is the manager of digital strategy for the Society of American Florists.