Why ephemeral social media content is important

Why ephemeral social media content is important.

Picture this, you’re staring at the bright white light we call “a social media feed” 

There it is… your favourite brand has posted a story announcing that there will be a huge sale on your favourite product in approximately 3 hours.

You gaze at the countdown feature on their story and you can feel the excitement overwhelm you. 

You make a pact with yourself that you will buy at least two and you tell yourself that you deserve it… because you do. 

However, life happens.

You check back the next day and you are overcome with the dreadful feeling of FOMO… Heartbroken, you make it known to yourself that you will continuously check back in with this company to ensure you never feel this distraught again. You even set a reminder on the business’s social media to be notified when they post. 

This sense of FOMO marketing (fear of missing out) is what brands use to drive sales and engagement. Because after all, no one likes to feel like they are missing out. This is why posting in an ephemeral style is an extremely useful tactic used by companies. The content will disappear after 24 hours which creates a sense of urgency and encourages people to react more quickly to any announcements you may make. 

Where you can use it

Now I know what you’re thinking. Instagram, duh! But there are many other platforms that utilise the similar “story” feature that Instagram is so well known for. Facebook, Youtube, TikTok are all great examples of social media platforms that also utilise the 24-hour story feature. Since the dimensions of stories on most of these platforms are almost the same, you need not make any major adjustments to your creatives before it is fit to be put on all of them. Using countdowns is a great way to encourage engagement across platforms. It creates almost a doomsday reminder of your launch where people are more inclined to remember that there is an event coming up. 

Almost all of these platforms offer the option to broadcast live to your audience. This feature is a great way to communicate with your audience and have that intimacy that you don’t get with other features. It breaks down that barrier that regular static posts create. Lives will typically disappear after it has been broadcasted. It’s a “you had to be there” kinda thing.

Share authentic updates

We all know being authentic is how we build better relationships with our audience. They don’t want to be sold at every 5 minutes. This is why it can be a good option to post interactive content such as polls or throwbacks on your stories. Or when going live you could do a Q&A session where your audience will ask you questions about yourself or your services/ products. By doing this you are reminding people that you are a human too. People like to buy from people as they can see who’s behind the brand.

So now you have a better understanding of what ephemeral marketing is and how you can implement it into your social media marketing campaigns. Don’t forget that FOMO can be a good thing… Want to read more about our marketing tips and tricks? Check out some of our other blogs or head over to our social media to see some of these bad boys in action @bluewhalemedia