I've heard this a few times, both sides. Stories doing well, posts aren't. Posts doing well, stories aren't. It's interesting because we generally see stories and posts to be pretty tied. Generally, impressions-wise, if you get a 100 impressions on your post, you get 25 impressions on your story. So you're getting 25% of the amount of impressions on your story as you do on your posts. That's generally what we're seeing. So that is rare.

First, I would ask, have your stories ever done well or have they always under-performed? If they've always under-performed, I think it is proof that maybe what you're doing there isn't interesting to your audience for some reason. The algorithm is not predatory. It's not just screwing you over. If they're not serving your stories to people, it's probably because people are skipping your stories. Again, my advice is not much different than it always is, which is test new things, track the data.

Take a week, write down your average story views that you're getting now. Change things up the next week and write your story views down. Then change things up again, write your story views. Plot that all out, track it. See if you can create change. Try very different things and see if you can get things to change. Linking what's happening in your post with what's happening in your stories is great. Rach Martino does a lot of this. She does a lot of-- like she does this behind the gram thing. She'll explain, she'll post behind the scenes. She does a nice job.

Mike Q, who we've talked about a bit, qmike on Instagram, he does a nice job of showing behind the scenes. Now, he does these complex pieces, videos and things like that. He's showing behind the scenes of it. It is interesting if you're interested in the posts. It just goes back to that. Is it interesting or is it you walking to the gym and being like, "Walking to the gym"? I think that stories came out, everyone tried it, and it was just like, "Let's throw up whatever." Then it's gotten a little more professional. People are using the templates, they're trying to make it look a little better. They're shooting stuff specifically for stories.

I think the quality level on stories has gone up, but there still is not a huge amount of strategy. What are you saying? Do you have a weekly or daily theme that you are working around? Do you have little things that you always do? Again, if you look at like Rach Martino, she does that Behind the Gram. That's a consistent thing that she is doing over and over. A couple of my friends I follow don't have a big following, but once a week they do the inspo stuff. That is nice and interesting if you have taste.

I think thinking about themes, thinking about buckets, thinking about trying to get your stories away from just, "I'm bored and I'm going to pick up the phone and film myself," to more thoughtful, produced work is one way to go. Again, the other way is that there are people with big personalities. Christina Caradona from troprouge is a great example. Her stories are-- There is no thought going into that, but she's funny and she's engaging and charming. I think that you just want to watch it because she's ridiculous.

For her, a more produced story would actually be a detraction, because her whole vibe is just letting you into her life and her being like, "Oh, my gosh," like, "I love Cheetos." I think it just depends on what your vibe is, but, as always, I would say experiment, track, try new things. There is a way to fix it if you work at it.