What is web story content and why should you use it

The future of content has always been videos, as now consumers spend their time scrolling through TikTok or Instagram. Many publishers have placed video at the center of the revenue model. And online stores, well, they can’t stay out of the trend.

Especially when the traditional text format seems to be missing the fundamental uniqueness of the mobile era: better resolutions, bigger screens, more content sources, and much shorter attention span.

Now, the vertical, mobile-first format has become the standard for everyone’s newsfeeds. Even since it’s spreading like wildfire among eCommerce stores, we will use this article to show you what it is and why you should use web story content.

Web story content can create a wonderful narrative

After 600 words of an article, roughly there are only 40 percent of readers still reading. The other 60 percent would leave for many reasons - such as getting bored, distracted, confused, or they just remember to look at another app for something more fun.

But the good news is that tappable web story content can be a fantastic tool for storytelling by having an act structure like in movie making. Such practices such as compressing, decompressing time, changing text length, predicting climax help build momentum and show just the right amount of information to keep users engaged.

Web story content changes the daily habit of consuming information

Unlike traditional content like a news article, users can control the amount of information intake with the web story content format, which is much like an enjoyable snack break. By providing users with short stories such as top five items at the moment, they can avoid some of the drifting and distractions on the website.

It’s like an upgrade, instead of scanning the content, now users have a GPS to find what to read next delivered right to them. Compare this to the old way of reading a blog post (oh the irony) and you can see the difference right away.

Web story content can have great performance

The team at NewsroomAI looked at the data from 45 stories published almost identically on-site, in an HTML format as well as on Instagram, over three weeks.

It was discovered that site visitors go further into the identical content, with a 72 percent higher completion rate than those on Instagram, using a normal length of 10 slides. When compared to Instagram, swipe-up rates for stories with a "See More" call to action were over 200 percent higher on the website.

With TikTok and Instagram so popular right now, users can recognize a story when they see one on their website, and that is where you can outperform those platforms.

Read more: 5 actionable web stories' data insights

Web story content provides a feedback loop

Interactive elements like quizzes and polls can help assist explain complex problems, present new evidence, and possibly dispel prejudice or false information.

For example, if you are posting web story content about a new fashion trend, you might want to know the readers’ opinions before importing a new catalog of products. Such divisive subjects are likely to cause the audience to evaluate your business approach even before you have a real plan for it.

Dynamic web story content can create a more inclusive content strategy where no previous assumption can influence and additional context is revealed with consumers’ input.

Web story content lets ads be less annoying

Okay, let’s be real now, banner ads suck. Pre-roll ads on Youtube are just straight up annoying. Moreover, all the new advertising categories created over time have put more pressure on the store’s budget with programmed pricing.

Web story content creates a new opportunity for store owners, publishers, content creators to rewrite their commercial game plan with an exclusive focus on brand advertising. No longer contained in a ridiculous rectangle, now users can view ads in a full-screen experience that also acts as a destination page.

Final words

Web story content is a massive transformation for stores towards the visual and mobile-first era of storytelling. It will work out handsomely for those who get it right early. You don’t want to miss out, and XO Story is here to help.