Speaker 1: Successful online content publication is all about audience engagement, so when a tool pops up that gives you a head start with this over your competition, it's time to sit up and take notice. Hi I'm Dean Arnett and in this film we're going to talk about Facebook and Instagram stories. Stories aren't actually that new but they still remain a reasonably underused resource for most news news producers. And with their geographic position at the top of the newsfeed, that means that those publishers that are using them have a massive advantage over others. But before we crack on, I've got lots of updates and tutorials coming out all the time, so don't forget to click subscribe on my YouTube channel, and also follow me on my social media channels. That's Dean Arnett on Instagram, and Dean Arnett Video School on Facebook. Right, let's get on.

Speaker 2: It just allows the viewer to get their news quickly, rather than putting it on the feed where they might not see it as quick. And I think because it's on Stories, I feel like that almost gives them sort of an instant feeling that they know it's up to date, and that they feel it's just fresh, we've just put it on, and it's just quicker for them to access.

Speaker 1: Stories are videos that are 20 seconds long, or photos that play for 5 seconds, portrait formatted and only lasting 24 hours. They appear at the top of your audience's newsfeed, so it's a prime spot on the screen real estate. It's because of this, as well as the potential interactive functionality that you can add, that means stories are ideal as a way of engaging and building audiences.

Speaker 2: The Rundown is basically an online social media news show aimed at 14-17 year olds and And it's really fast-paced, straight to the point. It's got graphics and things that are different to what you would see on TV. We also do stories that you wouldn't normally see on TV, and it's basically just stories aimed at that audience, things that they are interested in, things that they class as news that you usually wouldn't see on TV, for example. I think the reason why it works so well is because it's really quick, and I think it allows you to skip through. So if there's a certain story that you're not interested in, then you can skip to the one that you are interested in, and I think that the openness in the beginning where we we showcase three different stories. We give you three different types, so if you're not interested in a celebrity story, you might want a nice and funny that cheers you up, or you might want more of a serious type of story. I think having it in that way is the best because it allows the viewer to recognise it as a show, and I think that that allows the viewer to recognise it as a brand. So it creates more of like a loyalty thing because when they go on, they'll know that that's the rundown. And I think having presenters in it as well allows them to create a relationship with the presenter and to kind of just see it almost like a friendly chat, something that's just entertaining as well as informative. But I think having it in an episodic way just allows the viewer to kind of enjoy it almost like a show and just to have a good experience. And we think about that because we obviously have music that flows the whole way through and it's not just random bits of news.

Speaker 1: Across the Facebook and Instagram platforms, there is a lot of production flexibility and choices that you can utilise, as well as making the most of the difference between stories and reels. Stories are more about intimate content and drive engagement. Reels are more about broadcast. Generally, I like to think that stories are more for news and promos, whereas reels are more for features and content. Their 24-hour lifespan and episodic nature really distinguish content from that posted in the main conventional feed that lasts forever. That's why producers such as ITV's The Rundown have put so much effort into really perfecting stories.

Speaker 2: I think that because putting news on stories is so new that you're seeing news outlets just starting to do that now and I think a lot of people are just learning what does well from just as you go along really and I think that's our main focus now is to kind of see, try and test things and see what does well on that platform and that's a way for us to kind of understand the audience and just build our content.

Speaker 1: The Rundown team have already started identifying key techniques for supercharging their stories.

Speaker 2: Usually when we think of our top stories for the Rundown we like to lead with a really good picture. That works usually but it doesn't always work and we've had days, for example I think it was last week, when we decided to lead with a story that was about a TikToker who'd been charged for murdering her and her mum, and that story did really well. And I think the reason why it did well is because it was just a story that everyone was talking about online, and people were interested in it, they wanted to find out more and it was like a really grabby line, so even though the picture wasn't, it wasn't visually the best picture that we could have used that day, but as a story it was a really interesting story, so I think that's why it did well. And you know, usually with stories like that, when we think about using it on these platforms, we think obviously of that audience that we want to attract, which is our 14 to 17. But even though on Facebook, our audience are much older than that, they're still just as interested. The TikTok star and her mum accused of murder, who's paying for Prince Andrew's massive payout and what you might be calling your teachers from now on. Hey, I'm Amani and this is The Rundown. A TikTok star and her mum have been charged with murder after a crash left two men dead. Mahik Bukhari and her mum were arrested after a car was run off the road, crashing on a dual carriageway in Leicestershire. Three others have also been charged. When we did the election in 2019, we did like a specific show just for that, which went on Facebook stories as well. And people engaged in that, and we provided them with two different shows. So there was one that was overnight, and then there was one that followed up on the morning. Hey, I'm Imani. This is a special edition of the rundown as the polls have closed in the 2019 general election. Voting ended at 10pm with millions of people voting around the country. Now the party leaders wait to see how they've done. We won't know the result until the early hours of tomorrow morning but we are able to bring you a prediction of what might happen. It's called an exit poll and it's based on thousands of people being asked how they voted as they left polling stations today. The exit poll forecasts that the Conservatives will win with a large majority, a heads up that while the exit poll in the last election in 2017 predicted the correct result, it is still just a poll and the actual result could be different. There are results from 650 different parts of the country that will come back overnight. Each of these areas will elect an MP. A party needs 326 MPs to win the election and enter power, so that's the big number to watch out for. We do a lot of stories that involve dash cam footage or maybe we have a lot of stories that involve CCTV and things like that and people are really interested in those stories. It's really grabby and obviously because when we first start the rundown we tease the three stories that we think are the best ones that we have and I think when you do that it allows the viewer to stay because they want to see what happens next.

Speaker 3: Hi, I'm Sam, you're watching The Rundown. Here are the stories making the headlines today.

Speaker 4: Watch this brave police officer as he comes face-to-face with a man with what's believed to be a replica gun after a car chase. Shocked passers-by film what happened. The officer was only armed with a taser. The man was later arrested.

Speaker 1: Many organisations are already pushed to the limit with their resources and possibly feel yet another platform to service is just too much. But creating stories needn't put an extra strain on your post-production facilities. Facebook and Instagram have their own in-built production tools in the app that make creating stories easy. Not only that, they allow you to create impressive animated text and graphics, allow you to add active, clickable links and include questions or polls, making stories much more than just social media video and images.

Speaker 2: I probably enjoy editing the most, which can be challenging because of the vertical format. So there's a lot of videos that we get that we struggle to edit because of the way that they're filmed. But I think the challenge is what makes it exciting because then you can be more creative and it just gives the viewer a different experience so if they haven't seen it on TV, or even if they have, they'll get to watch it in a totally different way on the rundown.

Speaker 1: Knowing your audience is of course key to successful broadcasting or online publishing of any kind. But knowing whether your content is actually connecting with them and how well is absolutely vital to maintain that success. And that's where the extensive in-built analytics suite that comes with Facebook and Instagram can be so useful.

Speaker 2: So we look at analytics every single day. We have a look at the analytics from the previous day and we see what did well and why it did well and that helps us sort of decide what we lead with as stories. So if we see that one day the story that we thought was going to do well didn't do well, well that helps us understand that maybe people aren't interested in that and then for the next day we try to improve and give people what they want.

Speaker 1: Used correctly, stories isn't just a fresh way to present existing material, but a new way to better engage your audience and potentially grow and reach out to wider new audiences too.

Speaker 2: With the Rundown we create news content for 14 to 17 year olds in the hopes that they'll become engaged with our new service and become loyal viewers so that when they get older they'll be able to go onto the website and watch our TV programmes as well.

Speaker 1: Whether you use stories as a standalone brand like the Rundown or as a wider online strategy to energise and drive your audiences to where you need them to go to, you're missing a trick if you're not using stories.