What is a Web Story?

We’ve all been there. Pulling out our phone for a quick break before suddenly realizing we’ve been scrolling through social media videos for hours. The numbers don’t lie.Around the globe, users spend nearly two and a half hours browsing their favorite social sites and applications. An incredible contrast to the 45 seconds internet users typically spend on any other website.The question you're probably asking yourself is, how do social media platforms achieve such high rates of user engagement? The answer can be found in the tappable video content known as web stories.

What is a Web Story?

Similar to the story formats used by popular social media platforms, a web story leverages the same combination of video, audio, and text. Creating highly engaging, short video form content that can be published straight to your website. While the idea of a web story isn’t new, the ability to replicate the social media experience directly on your website is a complete game changer. Web stories not only boost user engagement, but bring an entirely new way for site visitors to digest your content. Additionally, they are easy to create, and have a lasting impact.

Firework vs Google Web Stories

Web stories are growing in popularity, and there are currently two platforms leading the charge, Firework, and Google. While both platforms help bring engaging video content to your website, there are a few differences when it comes to approach.As a video content platform, Google Web Stories does offer a functional and sleek design. That being said, you need to understand that Google created their web story platform to benefit themselves rather than you, the website owner. Here’s what that means:The entire idea of a web story is to bring short video format capabilities to your own website. Rather than the content you create living on a social media platform, like Instagram or Facebook who make money off of your work, a web story should put the control back in your hand.However, with Google Web Stories, your video content lives on Google’s platform. Helping drive both traffic and ad revenue for the search engine giant. Yes, you can still monetize your videos with Google, but your monetization will be restricted.What Firework set out to do is decentralize web stories so that you’ll finally be in complete and total control of the content you create. With Firework web stories, you can diversify your monetization and even gain access to high-quality content ready to share.Most importantly, with Firework, the traffic and audience you build through your web stories will belong to you.

Web Story Examples

Adding web stories to your website or online store is an easy way to engage the user with the dynamic content that they love. With that in mind, you should focus on adding short web stories that enhance your user experience. Here’s a look at some of the best examples of brands creating and using web stories for their audience.

Foo Tokyo

As a lifestyle brand that focuses on luxury products, it was easy to see why Firework web stories are an ideal fit for Foo Tokyo. By implementing web stories on their website, Foo Tokyo was able to increase the session duration by over 550%, and their page views by 30%. Here’s how they did it, and why it worked so well.Foo Tokyo used web stories to create a carousel of informative videos that highlight their products, which users were able to see right on the homepage. With the web story format, users and customers were able to engage with the brand, and quickly scroll to discover new products that they loved.

Audpop

When it comes to web story examples, Audpop is another success story that highlights the benefits of short video content done right. As a creative video platform that caters to users across the globe, Audpop and Firework web stories are a perfect match. By creating new, short story content for their websites, they saw customer engagement increase by 1,200%, and customer purchases increase by 500%.Here’s why it worked.Audpop understands what many businesses are starting to realize. The attention spans of users are shrinking, and that trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon. By integrating Firework web stories into their site, they can create short, yet powerfully engaging videos that bring more attention to their premium videos.

Benefits of the Web Story Format

In the relatively short time since social media platforms introduced story formats, businesses and brands have been taking full advantage. And why not? With an engaging and dynamic format, easily digestible content, and the selling power that comes with storytelling, it’s easy to see why the web story format translates so well to websites and online stores.Let’s take a look at some of the biggest benefits early web story adaptors are experiencing.

Expanding Your Reach

Today, video content is becoming more prevalent in marketing strategies. You can even see the increase in videos popping up on the search engine results page. If you stick to the traditional approach of strictly written content, you’re missing out on an entire segment of your audience that prefers to gather information through video.While Youtube videos are still the most popular forms of video to show up in search results, Google has recently rolled out a new feature. In short, the search engine giant is testing a carousel at the top of the search results page that aggregates short web stories (currently from social media platforms). It goes to show just how important short story video format is becoming for both users and creators alike.

Increased User Engagement

If you’ve ever scrolled through social media, then you’re already familiar with just how addicting it can be to watch hours of short video clips. The truth is, we find ourselves in an age where people’s attention spans just aren’t what they used to be. Also, since video is inherently more entertaining, web stories provide the perfect recipe for content your audience will enjoy.When comparing written content with video content, the statistics speak for themselves. Today, the majority of markets (92%) agree that video content is important to their overall marketing strategy. This isn’t just all hearsay either, when nearly half of all consumers prefer to see videos about the products or servers they’re trying to make a decision on, it makes sense that a brand or company meet them there.

Additional Revenue

Whether you're a publisher or business, you’re always striving to increase revenue. The good thing about web stories is that they help you achieve that goal. Either through additional ad revenue, or helping you increase conversion rates and sales. Web stories will play a key role in your long term success.

How Embedding Web Stories Makes a Big Impact

1. Quickly Produce Visually Appealing and Engaging Content

Web Story makes the technical process of producing stories as simple as possible.

2. Increase Your Creative Flexibility for Branding

The Web Story format includes components for sharing and adding follow-up content and pre-built but adaptable layout templates.

3. Web Story is a Component of the Open Web

It can be shared and embedded on various websites and applications without being restricted to a particular ecosystem.

4. Monitoring and Analyzing

Supports analytics and bookend features for viral sharing and revenue generation.

5. Web Story has Lightning-fast Loading Times

This keeps your audience entertained and engaged.

6. Immersive Storytelling

Web Story is a fresh and contemporary way to connect with your readers.

7. Strong Advertising Support

Web Story allows publishers to monetize their content through affiliate links and full-screen immersive story ads. Stories offer advertisers a new storytelling experience while also connecting with a niche audience.

Add Web Stories with Firework

If you’re a website or business owner ready to get started with web stories, we make it easy. At Firework, we provide seamless integrations with the leading website building platforms. So, you can get your short video content up and running in a matter of minutes. We also have free plans for you to take advantage of that can scale as you grow.