Stories gave these moments a place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Snapchat had long since pioneered the idea. Systrom<\/a> spoke very openly about it at the launch and explicitly gave credit to the competitor for it. Instagram took the concept and applied it to a network that, until then, had been heavily characterised by the perfect single image. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It sounds trivial today, but back then it made a big difference: that shaky concert video was suddenly allowed to sit alongside the carefully selected holiday snap. Morning coffee didn\u2019t need a permanent place on my profile, any more than a meal in a restaurant or just any old moment on the way home. In my case, there were quite a few photos of meals and blurry snapshots from nights out. Things where you knew even as you were uploading them: nice for today, but please not on my profile for the next five years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This also opened up new possibilities for brands. The feed continued to feature campaign visuals, products and carefully crafted images. Suddenly, Stories could showcase the \u2018before\u2019 and \u2018after\u2019: the set-up before an event, a glimpse into the office or a spontaneous reaction to something happening in the moment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet a story was never automatically more authentic. You can film a seemingly spontaneous mobile video just as many times as you can take a photo for your feed. What has changed is more a matter of expectations: a smartphone video no longer had to look like an advert. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n But there was something else that made storytelling even more exciting: suddenly, a story no longer had to fit into a single image. A wide shot to start with, a close-up on the next slide, then a video, and three taps later the resolution \u2013 it was now the thumb that set the pace, not the caption. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For brands, this meant that a product could be revealed bit by bit, and an event could be turned into a mini live report. Polls, quizzes, emoji sliders and, later on, questions or links turned simply watching into a small-scale interactive experience. My article \u2018More than just \ud83d\ude2d and \u2764\ufe0f\u2019<\/a> also shows how even an emoji can become part of the story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Nike demonstrated just how far this interaction could be taken in a particularly compelling way on Air Max Day 2018<\/a>. For individual trainers, they created their own little story worlds complete with hidden elements and choices. The way the story was navigated became part of the concept itself \u2013 users didn\u2019t simply click through images; they moved the story forward with their thumb. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Examples like these show that a story works best when the idea is designed for that space right from the start. Success was quickly followed by professionalisation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Just a few months after its launch, adverts began appearing in Stories. Businesses quickly realised how attractive this new space was. By its first anniversary in August 2017<\/a>, 250 million people were already using the feature every day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What started as a casual glimpse behind the scenes gave way to templates, editorial plans and KPIs. Ironically, it was the unplanned that became predictable. The principle is probably not entirely unfamiliar: at first, everything was supposed to look perfect; later, the seemingly casual \u2018photo dump\u2019 became the new ideal. Even chaos, it seems, can withstand a great deal of planning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Finstas\u2019 \u2013 secondary accounts for a closer circle of friends \u2013 are a good example of how quickly smaller spaces began to form alongside the more professionalised \u2018Story\u2019. The name stands for \u2018fake Instagram\u2019, although many young people described these very accounts as the more honest version of their Instagram lives. A study in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication <\/a>shows that teenagers posted more spontaneously and personally on these accounts, and also shared more complex emotions. On their main public account, the impact their posts had on others played a greater role. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end of 2018, Instagram introduced Close Friends, turning this need into a built-in feature of the app. I still notice this myself to this day. My account is public, but private matters end up in the green circle. This little green ring has almost become a sort of living room, whilst the front door remains wide open to the outside world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For brands, there is an underlying concept that has hardly changed over the years:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018A planned story can come across as very relatable. The key question is whether the channel has a genuine purpose: am I showing something here that would otherwise get lost in the feed? Am I letting people get a closer look? Or am I simply turning the same campaign image into a portrait format? For me, good storytelling begins when the content is genuinely intended for this space.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n Katrin Lenz, PR & Brand Storytelling Consultant at Mashup Communications<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n That was by no means the end of the desire for less theatrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2022, BeReal seemed, for a moment, to have found the next answer to this question. The prompt appeared once a day. Two minutes\u2019 time. Front and rear cameras. As little preparation as possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For anyone who felt Instagram had become too polished again, this almost felt like a minor counter-trend. Of course, it wasn\u2019t long before Instagram itself tested a similar idea with Candid Stories<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The hype surrounding BeReal also died down later on. According to Appfigures<\/a>, global downloads fell by around 60 per cent between 2023 and 2024. The story could hardly be more fitting: as soon as \u2018unfiltered\u2019 becomes a promise in itself, even the unfiltered eventually develops its own aesthetic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps I myself belong to the generation in which this change can be observed particularly clearly. Born in 1999, I grew up with the \u2018perfect feed\u2019, still use Stories all the time, and am more of a viewer than a creator when it comes to Reels. These days, I can spend so long selecting and then discarding a feed post that I end up not uploading anything at all. A Story goes online much faster. And there are some things I now send directly to specific people without even thinking about posting them publicly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Instagram head Adam Mosseri <\/a>now describes this shift as applying to the platform as a whole: more photos and videos are shared via Direct Messages each day than via Stories, and more via Stories than via the feed. In May 2026, another feature was introduced: Instants \u2013 unedited photos shared directly with Close Friends or mutual followers, which then disappear again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ten years after the launch of Stories, Instagram has, surprisingly, come quite close to the original idea once again: share the moment before you overthink it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Photos](\"https:\/\/www.mashup-communications.de\/app\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Redaktionsplan-Storytelling-1024x683.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
When Suddenly Not Everything Had to Be a Feed Anymore<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Thumb Becomes Part of the Story<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Five](\"https:\/\/www.mashup-communications.de\/app\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Instagram-Stories-Branding-1024x576.png\" "\\"\\"")
And at Some Point, Even Spontaneity Ended Up with an Editorial Plan<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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How Often Can Social Media Reinvent Reality?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
From the Perfect Feed to the Green Circle And On to the Chat<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Young](\"https:\/\/www.mashup-communications.de\/app\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Instagram-Close-Friends-1024x683.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
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