With over 2 billion monthly active users, YouTube offers a broad audience for anyone looking to share their content or promote their brand.
YouTube has a called YouTube Stories, which offers businesses and content creators a new way to engage with their audience.
This blog post will explore how businesses and content creators can use YouTube Stories to enhance their social media marketing strategy.
Also, we will discuss the benefits of using YouTube Stories, how to create compelling stories and some best practices for optimizing your content.
What are YouTube Stories?
YouTube Stories are short and vertical videos that appear at the top of YouTube, similar to Instagram Stories or Snapchat. But unlike Instagram or Snapchat, YouTube stories last seven days.
The idea of this feature is to provide an easy way for content creators to interact with their fans and followers.
With YouTube Stories, you can showcase your brand’s personality, connect with your audience on a more personal level, and drive engagement.
For example, you can share behind-the-scenes moments, daily life, promotions, upcoming videos, etc.
5 Things You Should Know About YouTube Stories
Before we go further into how you can use YouTube stories to grow your business, there are five things you should learn about them.
- Not everyone qualifies – You must have at least 10,000 subscribers.
- Creator Tags – Content creators can tag other creators in their stories to facilitate cross-channel and future collaboration.
- Mobile-based – This feature is only for mobile. It may be available for desktop, but YouTube has not yet announced it.
- Videos last longer – As mentioned above, YouTube stories can last up to 7 days and appear together in a series of stories.
- Stories are interactive – You can highlight comments, likes, hearts, and even commenters. Additionally, you can moderate or delete comments to prevent spamming and inappropriate comments.
Now, If you have over 10,000 subscribers, follow these easy steps to create your first YouTube Story.
- Open the YouTube app
- Tap the camera plus icon in the top right corner of the navigation
- Tap the story icon (rounded circle with plus sign)
- From here you have four options: add saved photo, add saved video (15 seconds) ,take a picture, record video (15 seconds).
- Once selected, you can edit your videos and photos by adding keywords, filters, video link, stickers, music, etc.
- Then, when you are done, click Save and then Post to submit your story to your YouTube page.
YouTube Stories vs Instagram Stories
Here are some differences between YouTube Stories and Instagram stories that you should know:
- Comment field
Unlike Instagram Stories, YouTube Stories have a comment section. How does that work? To reply to a comment, you have to post another story, you cannot write back text in the comment area, and you can view comments on YouTube stories for 30 days.
- Subscribe button
YouTube automatically puts a subscribe button on stories for users to click to subscribe to your channel. This will help increase your engagement.
- Stickers
YouTube Stories has a sticker feature similar to what we’ve seen on Instagram. You can link to videos on your channel or other channels. But you can link one video from your channel per week.
- 15-second cut-off
YouTube stories are 15 seconds each, just like Instagram story slides.
On Instagram, story cams record up to a minute, which you can split into four separate 15-second slides. But YouTube stories only record 15 seconds.
- Not available to everyone
Another difference you may have noticed at the beginning of this post is that YouTube Stories are only automatically available to some people. So, you need a minimum of 10,000 subscribers to access the Stories feature.
3 Ways Marketers Can Use YouTube Stories
You can use many content types to publish your YouTube stories, but we have listed the most preferable for the audience.
Teaser Videos
Use YouTube Stories as teasers to promote your videos. While you’re working on editing your new compelling video, it’s wise to give your audience a little sneak peek at what’s going on behind the scenes.
Pro Tip: We recommend creating this story a week before the video’s release.
Behind the Scenes Content
Share short clips of your work in progress, how employees work together, or BTS clips of making videos your audience watches weekly. They will love it!
New Video Announcements
Once your video is uploaded, remember to announce it on your YouTube Story. In this case, even users who don’t have notifications enabled for your channel will see that you’ve shared a video and can see it.
Also, announcing your next video will keep your audience curious about your release. Plus, it gives your audience a sense of exclusivity and a good reason to follow your YouTube channel.
Key Takeaways
To summarize, YouTube Stories can help you showcase your brand’s personality and connect with your audience casually and authentically.
Here are some key takeaways:
- You need a minimum of 10,000 subscribers to access the Stories feature.
- YouTube Stories are short, vertical videos that appear at the top of the YouTube app and disappear after seven days.
- Businesses and content creators can use YouTube Stories to share behind-the-scenes moments, daily life, promotions, upcoming videos, etc.
- Use a mix of content formats, and leverage YouTube’s features, such as polls and stickers.
- YouTube Stories are available only for mobile.
- You can easily schedule YouTube videos with Publer.
What do you think about YouTube stories? Do you prefer YouTube stories over Instagram Stories? Let us know your thoughts!