Web Stories: Marketing Insights and Key Numbers

While web stories are a fairly modern entry to online marketing, they have been with us for a while. And during that companies have kept a close eye on how well web stories perform, and what determines their effectiveness. So, in this article, we will take a more in-depth look at marketing insights into web stories and how you can use them to improve your online presence.

Key marketing insights into web stories

Using hard data to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing tools is something that all experienced marketing managers do. Of course, to properly interpret those numbers you will have to have some industry insight and experience. For bigger questions like whether web stories are worth the investment, such industry insight is paramount. But, for certain web story statistics, it really doesn't take much knowledge to appreciate what they are inferring.

Web stories sharing

A good sign of whether people find your stories interesting is whether they share them. Likes and comments are also good indicators, but they are not as showing as sharing. Namely, in order to share a web story, the person has to go through the process of clicking the share button, and picking the platform where they wish to share along with writing their thoughts about the story. This requires commitment (at least much more so than it would take to like or share a story). We all tend to like and comment on stories without much thought. So, if someone does share your story you can be quite certain that they find it interesting.

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Statistics show that stories that among all the shared stories, only 3% are without any media (just text). 13% are short videos. And 84% are with some form of visual content. Now, while it is generally good practice to incorporate visual content into your stories, this stat should also highlight that videos shouldn't be your go-to choice. Namely, images are far quicker to view and absorb. Therefore, people are far more likely to share them.

Average video length

When people decide to incorporate videos into their web stories they often wonder how long it should be. Well, the current average length of a video in a web story is 12 seconds. While this is not a set rule, you should keep it in mind as it is a good length to strive for. Of course, you shouldn't artificially lengthen your videos if you have nothing to say. Nor should you shorten them if you have important info to share. But, the 12-second length should serve as a good orientation of how long your video should be.

Using text in web stories

Deciding on whether to use text in web stories is rarely simple. On the one hand, the text does offer an easy way to precisely convey a message to your audience. On the other, it does take attention away from the visual content, which can be far more impactful. So, what do the stats have to say about using text in web stories?

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Well, the average number of words that people tend to put in web stories is 22. Upon deeper inspection, you can see that if the text is used to emphasize the visual content, it will have between 4 and 10 words. If the text is more important, it will contain 20 to 30 words. While you can tell a fairly complex story through web stories, you really should refrain from putting blocks and blocks of text. After all, people view web stories with the expectation of short, digestible content. If you wish to explain something more complex through text, use a blog.

The average number of pages within a web story

On average, people tend to use 15 pages per web story. On Instagram stories, you might want to go lower than that, as people don't like spending too much time on a single profile. But, when it comes to standard web stories, 12-18 is a good range to strive for. Again, you can use single page web stories, as well as 30-page ones. It all depends on what you are trying to say, and how you are going to space out your content. For more robust marketing storytelling, you may need to use longer story threads. But, learn how to properly pace them first.

Best CTA for the last page

While web stories can serve as a standalone piece of content, most are used to drive traffic to websites. As such, they need a CTA (Call To Action) button that will drive the people to the website in question. The framing and the pacing of the web story are important as they will help convince the reader to click through. But, what is also important is which CTA you plan on using. Research shows that

• "For more"
• "Read more"
• "Read the article"

Are the most commonly used today. Therefore, they can serve as a familiar segway for the reader into more detailed content.

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Making use of web story statistics

The information that we've outlined so far is hardly enough for you to create a web story from beginning to end. But, at the end of the day, the point of stats isn't to tell you how to create web stories. If it were, you could simply set up an algorithm and have web stories created automatically. Instead, you need to use the available stats to help guide your creative process. Stats are quite effective in helping you avoid common mistakes. And they can be also quite effective in helping you stay on top of modern marketing trends. Apart from hard data, you also need to keep your branding in mind and outline what you are trying to say with your web stories.

Tracking your own web story stats

We would strongly advise that you keep close tabs on your own web stories in order to learn how to create engaging ones. Things like:

• Engagement rates.
• Average view time.
• The number of shares, likes and comments.

All these can give you valuable insights into whether you are doing something right with your web story content. Fortunately, there are tools that make gathering such information quite easy. Tools like Google Analytics and Data Studio give you an easy way to monitor the performance of your web stories and gather your own data. They can even help you break down your audience, and see the profile of people that enjoy your content.

Branding

Using all the available stats in order to improve your web stories is just as foolish as using none of them. For your changes to actually be effective you need to understand both your brand and what precisely you are trying to improve.

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Savvy marketing managers keep a close tab on marketing trends. By doing so, they are able to recognize which alterations to their brand can yield the best results. Whatever change you plan on making to your web stories, needs to be in line with your brand. If it isn't, you stand to hurt your overall marketing by trying to improve a single element. Always keep in mind that changing things up in marketing is a risk. And how risky or rewarding it will be, is entirely up to you to determine.

Final thoughts

We hope that our marketing insights into web stories gave you an idea of how to orient your content creation. If you still have doubts, we would recommend that you hire a professional, and see what they have to say. In most cases, valuable input for a seasoned professional can be more useful than all the available data. Finally, we would advise keeping close tabs on news regarding web stories, as they are a fairly new type of content. The industry standards change rapidly, and you want to be at the forefront when they do.