5 ways to make Instagram Stories that people will love
Meet Pascal Chiarello, @CBC’s resident creator of Instagram Stories.
Pascal’s compelling and gorgeous Stories boast a 96 per cent completion rate, meaning most of the people who start the story actually stick around until the very end. (The average completion rate for Instagram Stories is around 70 per cent, so this is quite a feat.)
As a senior designer in CBC’s Communications, Marketing, Brand & Research department, Pascal uses his artistic side to create successful digital content that attracts a young audience.
When he’s not at CBC, he photographs fashion editorials and portraiture on the side, contributing photos to New York Fashion Week and collaborating with Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine.
I sat down with Pascal to talk about his winning approach and his sources of inspiration. Based on our conversation, here are five things to think about when putting together Instagram Stories.
1) Find what inspires you
When creating digital content, Pascal draws from what inspires him, notably fashion and experimental typography.
He follows European fashion magazines, such as i-D, Dazed & Confused, and Love. He also draws inspiration from the Memphis Group — a design movement that influenced the aesthetics of the ’80s and has re-emerged as of late. More commercially, MTV is also a big influence, as are Buzzfeed, Vice, and Mashable.
Pascal creates mood boards and mimics their aesthetic in his posts. He keeps this style consistent through his posts because it appeals to his target audience.
This is what inspires Pascal but it won’t necessarily inspire everybody. He suggests that creators should seek out what speaks to them and let it guide their work.
2) Be a trend hunter
Pascal stays close to the audience he’s trying to reach, following the pop culture and social media trends that appeal to them. Full disclosure, Pascal is a cool guy, so this comes naturally. But staying on top of trends doesn’t need to be intimidating.
Try to examine your social feeds in a different way — not as a consumer but as a trend hunter. For example, Pascal recognized an uptick in brackets on social media, so he created a Canadian City showdown Story using brackets. This playful piece had a wide reach and a high completion rate.
He stays active on social media to observe changing trends and keeps folders on his desktop and phone — adding screenshots of content he likes. He always keeps his audience front of mind when building his Stories and it seems to resonate with CBC’s followers.
3) Leave room for playfulness and spontaneity
Never let your approach become stagnant and always keep experimenting, says Pascal. A misconception about digital content is that it has to be planned and executed according to a science. Planning, having a strategy, and brand consistency are important but shouldn’t keep you from trying new things.
Pascal recognizes that consistent branding is important but to keep Stories fresh and current, he experiments with colours, fonts and backgrounds. He tries to tell stories on Instagram in a non-linear way by using a variety of formats.
The key to staying relevant is experimentation, Pascal says. He lets his mind run free and doesn’t follow gridlines.
4) Have fun and interact with your audience
For a medium like Instagram Stories, you have to give people a reason to stay. To do this, Pascal creates games, polls and quizzes to keep the user engaged and interested.
Pascal says posts should be primarily visual with an element of humour and entertainment — without being too brand pushy or corporate. He thinks it’s best to create content that aligns with your brand on the highest visual level.
5) Create content you want to see
On Instagram, the posts that resonate are those that are personal and relatable. Many people use Instagram Stories to stay connected with friends and family, so they generally don’t want to see content that looks like advertisements. This presents a challenge for brands and big organizations like CBC. How do we create content for a platform of this nature that resonates with our audience while still maintaining our voice and standards? There’s no simple answer but for Pascal part of his success has been adding a personal touch to his digital content.
Pascal strives to create Stories that feel relatable and like they’re coming from a real person, rather than a corporation. He sometimes takes his own photos to use as backgrounds, creates custom fonts, and incorporates hand-drawn elements made by his team.
This doesn’t mean that his posts should be pictures of his furniture collection — he is making Stories for a public broadcaster after all. Rather, when designing for a platform like Instagram, Pascal maintains the voice of CBC while also including his personal style.
Pascal might be the mastermind behind these Stories, but he couldn’t do it alone. He’s part of a great team that contributes text, illustrations, and content ideas from CBC programming. At the end of the day, it’s a team effort.
He’s excited to keep experimenting with Instagram Stories and to expand this work to other digital platforms, such as Snapchat. Stay tuned!
Want to see some of Pascal’s Stories? Check them out here: https://www.instagram.com/cbc/
