10 ways to craft compelling Snapchat and Instagram Stories

See how leading publishers are winning fans and gaining traction on these rising digital platforms.

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Snapchat and Instagram Stories have quickly changed social media publishing and digital storytelling.

Top publishers and even staid news organizations are now harnessing the power of snackable, ephemeral content. It’s not for everyone, but Snapchat and Instagram Stories can delight your audience and help you reach younger readers.

Instagram Stories versus Snapchat Stories

On Instagram, Stories tend to use one punchy sentence or quotation per screenshot. The Instagram Stories visuals tend to go one of three ways:

On Snapchat, some of the above trends hold. However, the visuals of Snapchat Stories tend to be a bit more complex, including more animations and professionally shot videos. Snapchat Stories also tend to be wordier than Instagram Stories. On Snapchat, you’ll often see paragraphs of text.

Here are 10 more takeaways, tactics and trends gleaned from analyzing top Snapchat and Instagram publishers:

1. Spotlight hot stories.

Some publishers used Stories to direct followers to a particular “story of the day” or to inform readers about breaking news.

Publishers such as Bustle, LADbible, Bloomberg and TechCrunch use this method to highlight a timely story and encourage followers to swipe up for more.

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