Expert: What brands need to know about app stories
Kristina: What are app stories?
Emre Fadillioglu, CEO & Co-Founder, App Samurai: In simple terms it’s brand or user generated short-form content i.e. stories that are shared with an audience through an application. This short-form content are stories that can include anything from emojis-reactions, quizzes or polls all with the sole purpose of engaging people. With Storyly for example, any brand can integrate our tool to showcase their own brand-generated stories seamlessly and leverage our many features, including live-streaming shopping.
Krisitna: Why is this new option important for brands?
Emre: About two years ago we noticed that a big focus was moving towards mobile retention and engagement specifically in the mobile-app industry. People started to enjoy interacting and consuming short-form content and that all started primarily with social media apps like Instagram and Snapchat. For brands nowadays, if you are not engaging with your consumers or followers via stories, you are missing out on building brand loyalty and even revenue. Leveraging stories can help brands drive sales, collect data and build greater brand affinity with their target audience.
Kristina: What drawbacks are there for this medium?
Emre: Some of the drawbacks include the need for more content creation, prioritization of app real estate and tracking conversion of sales as the core action that measures the impact of these short-form content stories.
Kristina: What are consumers looking for in app stories?
Emre: Consumers are looking for engaging and unique content that will resonate with them in a mere second, because if it doesn’t happen that quick you might have lost them that quickly. There’s a huge untapped opportunity for brands to get to consumers’ dollars quickly by being strategic with their content. A good example of this is product tagging in the shopping journey. With product tagging any brand can replicate a tasteful shopping in-store experience all through a simple story. Storyly is excited to share this feature which allows brands to label or tag complete information on a product, which includes product name and price all within its stories. Additionally, each product tag takes the user to the product detail page still within the app and makes it effortless for them to purchase an item on the spot. With a simple feature like this a product marketing piece of content easily converts into sales.
Kristina: How can brands ensure they have the right tools to create engaging app stories?
Emre: There are a few things brands need to get right:
Brands need easy and seamless ways to create content for all their numerous channels. Leveraging tools that help diversify their existing assets through various interactive content forms on mobile is paramount. Especially for eCommerce, brands need to think about the user experience in a way that goes beyond the in-store experience with shoppable content.
Tools that allow brands to seamlessly tailor the content and interactions to create personalized experiences is very important for engaging target audiences. Labeling stories per relevant audience segments can allow customizing content to different levels, interests and habits. Another tool to capitalize on is live streaming. It’s perfect to connect with your target audience.
