New Instagram Location Stories

During this week Instagram has made another major update on how we share stories and how we search places. This new feature enables users to watch stories from specific areas or even places.

Let’s have a step by step look on how it works:

(the pictures are screenshots from the update story Instagram shared with its users)

On the top of the search feed, on the stories slide, the second story that appears first, next to live section, is the location story. It is the closest most popular location to your area.

If you tap on the search you can type any other location, you wish. Then you can choose it underneath. If it does not appear as a location, there is the ‘places’ button underneath, that will provide you with locations related to what you have written (no profiles or hashtags are shown on this tab)

When the location is selected, there is a new window-feed where the location map, pictures and story tab are show.

Tap onto the top circle (representing the stories) and you will be able to view the stories of the selected area, publicly shared on Instagram.

The message from Instagram regarding the new update and features is to ‘Explore the world’ as seen on the screenshots. It is actually true. Instead of looking and searching pictures to public profiles, now one has the power to view stories from all around the world published the last 24 hours.

We uploaded 2 stories yesterday and one of them was shown to the location story of our area (Nea Erithraia Story). There is 1 view, but we cannot see which user actually watched the story.

Privacy

Users should be more thoughtful about privacy settings. If one has a public profile, then the stories can be shown to anyone who searches a location, if Instagram showcases the story. Users with private profiles will not be featured on these area stories.

If your story has been showcased to a location’s story, then you will be able to see how many times it has showed up and was seen by users. You are not able to see the names of the users who have watched your story, through this new feature. Meanwhile, you are able to see which of your followers have seen your story. This privacy setting gives the will to watch stories from different locations and stay anonymous, as the users cannot find who has seen it (for now).

Corporate & Professional Advice

Stories are becoming more important and can work as promotional material.
Users that are not following your professional profile can now view your public stories if you use the location feature in the device you upload them from. Try to feature your offices’ location if you would like to attract local users. Otherwise you can use a more general geographic area in order to have more chances to be showed up to location stories (this last comment comes from what we have encountered the last 3 days in our area).
As it is a new feature, not all of the public stories are shown into the location stories Instagram creates for each user. So for now, the more you share, the more chances you have to be featured.
Evaluate the stories you upload. Choose a style and a character you would like to depict in order to communicate your brand your values the best possible way.
Be creative, try the different features Instagram provides you with: Picture, Video, Boomerang.
Plan and organize your stories as you do with your posts. Make a calendar with pictures or attributes of your business that you would like to present. You can save pictures (within the 24 hours you would like to upload them) and use them as posts on Instagram stories throughout the day. This is a ‘cheat tactic’ if during the day, there is nothing interesting or applicable going on in order to be posted.
Make a list of words, phrases and quotes that represent your business in order to inspire viewers or just to be prepared when you run out of ideas. Recently, it is very common with bloggers and celebrities to create and post a story, with a plain black background and a written message with emoji, tags and hashtags.