Stories

Overview

Stories are a short-lived post format that disappears automatically 24 hours after posting. Snapchat introduced them as "Stories," and they spread after Instagram adopted them as "Instagram Stories" in 2016. Facebook and other social media have similar features. They are more casual than regular posts and are used to casually share a slice of everyday life.

The effect of sharing your question box in Stories

Stories are often used as a place to share answers from a question box. The fact that they disappear after 24 hours is thought to create a sense of scarcity, "you can only see it now," and give followers a reason to think, "I don't want to miss it."

Stories have a link sticker feature, which lets you paste the URL of your question box directly. Followers can reach your question box just by tapping the sticker, which shortens the path to sending a question. A Story that combines the text "Taking questions" with a link sticker is one efficient way to collect questions.

Making use of the fact that Stories disappear

The fact that Stories disappear after 24 hours brings its own advantages to running a question box. If you share Q&As as regular posts, they stay in the list of posts on your profile. With too many Q&A posts, your other posts can get buried, and your profile can become hard to browse.

With Stories, no matter how many Q&As you share in a day, they don't stay in the list of posts on your profile. It's worth splitting them up: light questions in Stories, and especially interesting Q&As as regular posts.

Keeping Q&As with Highlights

Stories disappear after 24 hours, but with the Highlights feature you can keep them on your profile. If you group your question box Q&As into Highlights by category (love, work, hobbies, and so on), new followers can enjoy your past Q&As all in one place.

It's good to give your Highlight cover images a consistent design. A Highlight with a title like "Q&A" or "Question box" can also become a place that lets people know about your question box.