Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Use the story function on whatever platform you are on. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, wherever you show up.
And use them for something beyond reposting whatever you just put in your feed. Use them for all the other things that make you human.
Your feed posts are doing the work of showing new people what you are about. Your stories have a different job entirely, which is nurturing the relationships that already exist, so the people who followed you keep getting reminded why they followed you in the first place.
This is architectural rather than a matter of preference, and once you see it the strategy becomes obvious.
Platform data shows that stories primarily reach your existing followers, while reels and feed posts reach wider audiences that include people who do not follow you. The reach numbers reflect it too. Stories typically reach somewhere between 2% and 9% of your followers, compared with 13% to 27% for feed posts, with smaller accounts in the 1,000 to 5,000 follower range reaching closer to 10%.
So the two formats are built for different jobs. Feed content goes out looking for people. Stories go to the people who already decided they want you in their day. Treating them as interchangeable means running your discovery content to an audience that already discovered you.
Summary Stories primarily reach existing followers, reaching roughly 2% to 9% of them, while feed posts reach 13% to 27% including non-followers. The formats are built for different jobs.
The most common thing I see is a story that is just the feed post again, with the little “new post” sticker on it.
The people seeing that story are the same people who already saw the post, or who will see it when they scroll. You have used a nurturing slot to repeat acquisition content to an audience that needs no acquiring. Occasionally pointing to a post is reasonable, particularly if it is genuinely useful. Doing it as the whole strategy means your most intimate channel is working as a billboard for your other channel.
The format is quietly offering you something valuable, which is a direct line to people who already like you, with no algorithm deciding whether a stranger finds it interesting. That deserves better than a repost.
Summary Resharing feed posts to stories repeats acquisition content to an audience that already follows you. Occasional pointing is fine, but doing it as the whole strategy wastes a direct line to people who already like you.
So what goes there instead? The things that make you human, which is precisely the material that never quite earns a spot in the feed.
What you are working on today. The coffee, the drive, the client call that went well. Something that frustrated you. A behind-the-scenes look at how the work actually gets made. Your opinion on something happening in your industry. The dog. The mess. The part of running a business nobody posts about.
This material builds the relationship because it shows the person behind the business, and people stay loyal to people. Your feed proves you are competent. Your stories prove you are someone they would want to work with, which is a different and often more decisive thing.
The engagement patterns support this. Stories average around a 70% completion rate across thousands of brands analyzed, so the people who start watching tend to stay. They also generate higher direct message and reply volume than feed content, which is the clearest sign of a relationship forming rather than an audience observing.
Summary Use stories for behind-the-scenes material, daily work, opinions, and the human parts of running a business. Stories average around 70% completion and generate more direct messages than feed content, which signals relationships forming.
Here is why this matters commercially, since none of this is about being nice for its own sake.
Somebody who follows you is sitting in a long period between discovering you and needing you. That gap might be months. What happens during it determines whether you are the obvious choice when the need arrives, or one of several names they vaguely recognize. Stories fill that gap with small, frequent reminders of who you are, which is exactly the repetition memory requires.
The research on existing audiences is consistent on this point, with the probability of selling to someone already in your world sitting far higher than selling to a cold prospect. Your stories are how you stay in that world daily without demanding anything.
Summary Followers sit in a long gap between discovering you and needing you, and stories fill it with frequent reminders of who you are. Selling to someone already in your world is far more likely than selling to a cold prospect.
There is a practical reason to take stories seriously that has nothing to do with relationship building.
The link sticker is one of the only native ways to move somebody from social media to a destination you actually own. Tap-through rates sit modestly in the 0.3% to 1% range, which sounds small until you consider that those are people with high intent arriving at your site. Point them at a blog post you wrote, a service page, a signup form, or whatever you want them to see.
This is where the nurturing layer connects to the assets that matter. Somebody watching your stories for three months is far more likely to tap through, read properly, and subscribe than a stranger clicking an ad. Good website design makes sure that tap lands somewhere that converts, and the traffic becomes part of the picture your search engine optimization work is building. A good SEO company brings people in through search, and your stories bring your existing audience back to the same place, which is a nicely complementary pair.
Summary Link stickers are one of the few native ways to move people from social to a destination you own, with tap-through rates around 0.3% to 1% from high-intent viewers. Strong website design makes sure that tap converts.
Stories are the easiest content to keep up with, since the whole point is that they are unpolished.
Post as things happen rather than planning them, since the material is your actual day. Use the interactive stickers, meaning polls, questions, and quizzes, which reportedly lift reach and engagement meaningfully and give people an easy way to respond. Keep them short, because completion drops off sharply after the first few frames. And let them be imperfect, since a story that looks produced defeats the purpose of the format.
If maintaining a daily presence alongside the rest of your business is unrealistic, a social media manager and good social media management can keep the rhythm going, though stories are the one format where I would push you to stay personally involved, because the human material is the point. A marketing consultant or some marketing training can help you figure out what belongs there if the blank screen is the obstacle.
Summary Post stories as things happen rather than planning them, use interactive stickers to invite replies, keep them short, and let them be imperfect. Stories are the one format worth staying personally involved in, since the human material is the point.
Use your stories, on whatever platform you are on, for the things that make you human.
Your feed posts are out there showing new people what you are about. Your stories reach the people who already follow you, which makes them the place to nurture those relationships and keep reminding people exactly why they followed you to begin with.
Give them the behind-the-scenes, the opinions, the ordinary parts of your day. That is what keeps you in somebody’s mind during the long stretch between finding you and needing you.
Sources:
Outfame, analysis of aggregated data from over 65,000 Instagram accounts (stories primarily reach existing followers while reels reach broader audiences including non-followers; stories drive higher direct message and reply volume; story reach for accounts with 1,000 to 5,000 followers averages 9.5% to 10.4% of followers). https://www.outfame.com/blog/instagram-stories-statistics
Dash Social, sample of over 2,000 brands with at least 1,000 followers (instagram stories average approximately a 70% completion rate).
https://www.dashsocial.com/blog/every-instagram-stories-performance-benchmark-you-need-to-know
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