Instagram gives flexibility in Stories

Photo-sharing platform Instagram on Wednesday rolled out new tools that give advertisers more flexibility over how they create and buy ads in its ‘Stories’ feature.

With a new uploading tool, advertisers can now use their existing organic ‘Stories’ as ads and also have it live permanently within Facebook's advertising tools like ‘Power Editor’ and ‘Ads Manager’ for future use.

"Advertisers can use camera features like face filters, boomerangs, and drawing tools to create an organic piece of media, and then repurpose as an ad," Instagram said in a statement.

"Stories", a feature that lets users post photos and videos that vanish after 24 hours, was introduced in Instagram in 2016, after it became famous on photo and video sharing platform Snapchat.

Globally, over 250 million people watch and create stories everyday while the application currently has nearly 700 million users globally.

Additionally, with the ability to utilise Facebook's fast-loading full screen "Canvas" format in Instagram "Stories", marketers will have the ability to use the creative space of "Canvas" to tell compelling brand and product stories.

The Facebook-owned photo-sharing app is also rolling out the ability for Instagram "Stories" to be automatically added to Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network campaigns through placement optimisation.

The features will be rolled out globally in the coming weeks, the company noted.