Dig deep into your memory…it’s 2014 and the ALS ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ is everywhere. You couldn’t open Instagram or Twitter without seeing the challenge on your feeds. It simply took over the nation and possibly the world for a few weeks. A report from RTI International indicates that the 2014 challenge increased annual funding for research by 187 percent. Of course, this is great for the research and the association, but you may be asking yourself, “how does that help my business”?
Among tried-and-true business practices, social media marketing is still kind of an outlier. We know it’s effective. We know there’s clicks, customers and SEO power to be garnered. However, ROI can be a bit trickier to pin down. Adding to the difficulty, the ever-changing algorithms make it a moving target and just when brands and influencers alike figure it out, it evolves.
If you opened Instagram recently you may have noticed a change in the way you are able to view your stories. Stories from accounts you follow will now play on a 15 second loop instead of expiring and automatically moving on to the next. To continue to the next story post, you tap the right side of your screen just like before – but now it is when you are ready. The bar at the top of your screen that measures how far along the story is until completed is now removed. I didn’t think the change was that impactful until I began using the app longer.