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Facebook Stories are a visual way to share content, it is a feature that adds filters and effects to images, photographs, or videos on your phone. Rather than just posting these images to Facebook, they are posted to the Stories section of Facebook App and are only available on mobile devices.

The Stories are shared only to specific people the user chooses, through direct sharing. Friends receiving Stories are only able to view it once. Once the story ends, the image or video will no longer be visible.

Stories Benefit Business Pages

Businesses can post Stories to their News Feeds and send to their audience. While similar to just posting an update, there are a few benefits to posting Stories.

Reach Who You Want – Stories allow businesses to directly share specific content with specific followers of the Business Page. Additionally, as Stories are visible once and disappear after 24 hours, posting a story about a limited time offer or sale makes Stories very appealing, once the story expires the offer is no longer visible.

Reach Audience Consistently – Updates have a shelf life in the News Feed, depending upon how many people and businesses your audience follows, your updates may never be seen if they are posted when users aren’t on Facebook. With Stories your audience will never miss an update, the story will be visible to them at the top of their News Feed once they log on, regardless of when you post it.

Humanize Your Business – Stories allow your business to be more personable and accessible. Stories help people get to know your business a bit better. This allows your business to post more relatable content.

Additionally, you can see the number of people watching your stories at any time while it’s live.

Stories will Surpass the News Feed

Facebook chief product officer Chris Cox explains that “the Stories format is on a path to surpass feeds as the primary way people share things with their friends sometime next year.”

Facebook Messenger Stories had 70 Million users in September alone and Instagram has over 300 million users posting Stories.

Facebook was asked and confirmed that it is working on a way to monetize Facebook Stories.

During a recent earnings call, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Facebook is working on “making sure that ads are as good in Stories as they are in feeds. If we don’t do this well, then as more sharing shifts to Stories, that could hurt our business.”

Businesses will need to figure out how to fit Stories into their marketing strategies, this way they will be ready to use the advertising feature when it rolls out.

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