Arguments are pouring in from almost everywhere on how the new ‘Stories’ feature on Instagram is strikingly similar to Snapchat. From praises to curses, the responses vary widely at this point. While this particular feature might not attract many new users, it will certainly get current users to use Instagram more often. On top of that, it is sort of giving users a new format without letting them escape to another platform. Many users who weren’t using Snapchat (or have given up any hopes of being able to figure out Snapchat) are experimenting with Instagram stories, partly out of curiosity and partly because it is right there in front of them in one of their favourite apps.

On the other side, many travel brands, including some major hotel chains, were starting to experiment with Snapchat and the stories could also be an interesting addition for brands. Here is why we think Instagram Stories is a feature worth experimenting with, for your brand:

1- No starting over

Yes we have highlighted the fact that Snapchat can be a great platform to add, especially if your travel brand targets younger audience. However, starting to build a fresh set of audience isn’t an easy job. Instagram Stories offer a middle ground by bringing elements of Snapchat and your existing Instagram audience together. You can start experimenting here and if this format works well, you can consider diverting some resources towards Snapchat as well.

2- Regain visibility

We hated it when Instagram decided to kill the chronological order of posts. While maintaining a decent posting frequency worked well for brands earlier, the algorithmic feed changed that. However, stories show up right on top when you open Instagram. So even if your posts are losing visibility, the brand can still be visible with the help of Stories.

3- Easier discovery

Snapchat doesn’t make it really easy for users to discover other users (or brands). That isn’t a problem with Instagram though. Hashtags and geotags help with discovery of your account and it is easier for people to find your brand and connect with it.

4- More audience

You know what is better than 150 million daily active users? 300 million daily active users. While Snapchat is growing fast and has an impressive user base, there is no way you can ignore the fact that Instagram is much bigger. On top of that, Facebook is known to be bullish on products it sees significant and that could work in your favour if you are using Stories.

5- No more overposting

Instagram posts are all about quality and brands post their best photographs at the right time to engage with the audience. However, at times, the social media platforms are also used to host campaigns or keep the audience posted on major developments and that means disrupting the posting schedule and even overposting. Stories could help you avoid that. Hosting a bloggers’ meet? Broadcast it through Stories. New office? Tell people through stories. Exhibiting at a travel fair? Stories again.

6- Different characters

The Instagram posts we see on most accounts are the exact opposite of Stories in most cases. While the posts have high quality curated content, Stories have more raw content. So the two can be used to post different content and present different characters of the brand. Things you might want to tell your audience but might not want to have on your Instagram profile. GoPro for instance posts amazing photos shared by GoPro photographers all over. On stories however, they have been sharing photos and videos of how some lucky GoPro users are going places. So you can be telling more than one story at the same time.

Have you tried using Instagram Stories for your brand yet? Do share any interesting ideas you might have on using it for travel marketing. Join the discussions on travel marketing and get inputs from the topic experts here.

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Instagram has turned Snapchatty and people are losing their minds over it. They are rolling eyes on this new Instagram feature that is ‘inspired’ by Snapchat. However, it is barely about who brought what feature first. If it is there and Instagram can pull it off in a better or even equally successful manner, there is nothing wrong with it.

Instagram is widely used by travellers to share their experiences but like any other social network, it is about quality and to some extent, social validation. Most people shoot hundreds of photos, dozens of them turn out to be decent, then they fine tune few of them to post on Instagram. It is all about showing your best so that people like your photos. People like your photos so you post more. One of the many reasons Snapchat is so successful is because there is little social validation. Instagram has done the same by introducing this new format of posts. You can now post photos of the weird things you do during your trip without the expectation of likes and they will disappear in a day.

People often delete media from social platforms, usually because they weren’t getting enough likes or it wasn’t as good as their other posts. The ‘stories’ will allow people to share photos that they want to share but weren’t doing because of these reasons. More content will be shared and it could also bring new users for this new feature. And as Instagram has essentially built Snapchat as an additional feature, the standard Instagram features will also see more users. This in turn will give more visibility to the standard Instagram posts which can never be a bad thing for brands looking to expand their reach through this platform, isn’t it?

Brands can also use the tool effectively during their campaigns. Often brands try to have a certain theme and character to their posts, which of-course is the right strategy for Instagram. However, during contests or campaigns, they either prefer to use different accounts or have to ditch their character, and even their publishing patterns. Stories would allow them to share this content without having to disrupt the standard publishing.

Apart from the ‘Stories’ that is making stories all over, the parent company Facebook has got some plans with live videos. While Instagram built a Snapchat into the app now, Facebook built a Periscope into the platform a while back. They have been pushing the live video feature aggressively and now sources suggest that Facebook has started testing ads between live videos. They are working with a small group of publishers at this point to let them insert short ads in live. These ads can appear after five minutes in a live stream and can be up to 15 seconds long.

When Facebook rolls out the feature, it is likely that advertisers will have the ability to create custom ads to be shown during live videos. Adage has reported that publishers will have control over what category of advertisers can advertise during their live streams and even turn it off. We might also see a revenue sharing between Facebook and the publishers. Certain things about the new ad formats aren’t clear yet but a public launch shouldn’t be far.

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It’s interesting how social media has transformed the art of story-telling. It’s no more mundane and repetitive. There have been instances where DMOs have leveraged the reach of social media to create fascination amongst travellers. Kerala Tourism has been an active Destination Marketer for as long as we can track down. They have had interesting concepts that bring out the true essence of being in Kerala and belonging to Kerala. In bringing out more travel engagement, Kerala Tourism had commenced an Instagram campaign three weeks back.

The story included various Instagram accounts participating in creating a game. With a very primitive and basic start out, the story builds upon the life of a corporate professional. It depicts that de-stressing is the bottom line at any vacation.The VisitKeralaFunTrip game aims at finding the “Mirror of God” as an objective which is accomplished by creating overlapping accounts. Permutations and combinations of various Instagram accounts are what propels it to life.

The whole story encompasses a plethora of activities that the main character embarks upon. From learning Kalari to laying on the black backwaters, from hopping on a jungle safari to spotting a snake boat in waters, the game proceeds with levels where there are always two outcomes to a situation with one leading towards the Mirror of God. The Mirror of God end account takes the traveller to the official website of Kerala Tourism in a hope to find solace when one plans Kerala.

This kind of endeavour in marketing a destination has started to see new horizons on social media. It has started to pick up quite well with the travellers and people have started finding a new angle to look at a destination.

Here’s how the Kerala Tourism is telling stories.

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After rolling out the feature as a beta for limited users, Instagram has finally rolled out the feature to switch between multiple accounts without logging out. Brand marketers often struggle with multiple devices and multiple passwords to manage their personal and brand accounts and with the relevance this platform holds for travel industry, it isn’t something one can give a pass. Some people used to rely on third party apps to manage the different accounts while some would keep a note of all the accounts and passwords.

The beta came out around two months back as a cloud based update for some people who were a part of the testing program. The final update also came out as a cloud based update for people running the latest version of Instagram app.

After the update, users will be able to switch easily between multiple accounts, somewhat like Twitter. Additional accounts can be added from the profile settings. Once added, accounts can be switched by tapping at the top of profile and the profile photo will appear in places throughout the app to avoid any mix-ups. It is limited to 5 accounts which is quite good compared to logging out and logging in again.

The profile picture will be visible to tell what account one is using

Brands often use multiple accounts to engage with their audience, at times for campaigns or just to showcase some creativity like Vista Rooms did with their Instagram based app. The multiple account feature would simplify the job for them. We have always emphasised how good a platform Instagram is for travel brands and the addition of this feature will facilitate even the smaller travel brands to adopt the platform. While the beta was seen on Android devices only, the account switching feature is available on iOS devices as well.

How do you plan to take advantage of this new feature on Instagram?

Instagram blog

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Ever since Instagram came into existence, it allowed its users and brands to engage using the power of visuals. It has been continuously experiencing impressive growth and with its simple approach, one of the most engaging as well. Even before Instagram decided to include ads on the platform, many brands have been using the platform to spread the word.

We recently dicussed about why Indian OTAs shouldn’t miss out on Instagram. Not just the Online Travel Agencies but many other B2C travel businesses can benefit from this platform. So we have compiled a list of dos and don’ts for using this platform for brand promotion.

Dos

Use the power of Hashtags

Hashtags help your visuals get noticed among the millions of photos that are being shared on Instagram everyday. Most of the brands use three or four hashtags but it won’t hurt to use few more if they are relevant to the post. Some hashtags related to travel commonly used on Instagram are #ttot, #igtravel, #instatravel and #travelgram. You can include such tags in the mix to gain instant visibility.

It is also very important to promote a branded hashtag that will be used on all the posts. Even when you are using a specific hashtag for the duration of a contest, use it with the brand hashtag. This would encourage your followers to use the hashtag as well. Not only will it help you crowdsource content but would also help you keep track of the content being shared around your brand.

Crowdsource

Once you have started engaging your audience, you can use Instagram to crowdsource images. People love interacting with the brands they like and reposting fan photos will motivate even more of them to follow and share the pictures with you. Skyscanner, the global travel search engine asks people to use the hashtag #letsgoeverywhere to share their adventures and a large number of their posts are stunning photos shared by people all over the world. This reduces the effort of generating content and brings in a variety of content which won’t be possible otherwise.

Make sure people know about your unique hashtag

Contests and Insta-Takeovers

Instagram is a good platform for hosting contests similar to Twitter. Tourism Malaysia recently launched the #BeautifulMalaysia campaign which is attracting a large number of entries. NatGeo India organises photowalks through contests on Instagram and these are just few examples.

Brands can rope in influencers to take over their Instagram account and manage it for a few days. This works in favour of both the brand and influencers as both of them are able to connect with each other’s audience while adding a new flavour to the brand account.

Include real people

Sure the beach photos and sand dunes look great on a brand Instagram profile but they can be even better if you include people. Of course this can be achieved easily if you are taking care of the first two points i.e. hashtags and crowdsourcing. A photo of kids beating the heat at a splash pool might just work a little better than the photo of just the pool.

A group of boys playing in the #YamunaRiver with the #TajMahal in the background. Congratulations Achal Mishra on winning the best image during the first week of #LPCoverImage (theme: Friendship Day) A big thank you to all who participated. More themes to come Next up: Independence Day theme. T&Cs: bit.ly/LPCoverImage_Terms More about the contest here: on.fb.me/1lVet3g #LonelyPlanetIndia #LPI #LPIndia #ContestAlert #contest #LPCoverImage

A photo posted by Lonely Planet India (@lonelyplanetindia) on Aug 10, 2015 at 11:33pm PDT

Don’ts

Lack strategy

It is very important to have a character, whether it is your personal account or the brand account. Which means you need to define your niche and plan accordingly. It is okay to move away for a few posts but on the whole, your brand account should have a character & reflect what you are doing and should be built around it.

Compromise on quality

Instagram is an endless stream of photos on a single page. Most people keep scrolling down until they spot something that stands out. Usually you have a fraction of a second to grab the attention and send your message. Even when exploring through hashtags, there are eight other photos along the same theme.

Overdo or Use wrong hashtags

Although this one goes without saying, we are going to mention it anyway. Never use irrelevant hashtags on your posts as this will bring down your credibility and paint a negative picture of your brand. Another thing to keep in mind is that while Instagram allows upto 30 hashtags, avoid putting them all in the caption. Instead put them in the comments after you have posted the picture with a caption.

If you are just starting out on Instagram, you can take a look at accounts like Lonely Planet India or Nat Geo Traveller India. Destination marketers can look at Goa Tourism among domestic and Tourism Australia among international destinations for some inspiration.

Join the discussions on travel marketing and get inputs from the topic experts here.

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