Story
A full-screen, vertical post that disappears after 24 hours — casual, frequent, and shown mostly to existing followers.
A story is an ephemeral full-screen post — photo or short video — that vanishes after 24 hours. Pioneered by Snapchat and now standard on Instagram, Facebook and others, it's the low-stakes, high-frequency format: polls, behind-the-scenes, quick updates.
Stories mostly reach people who already follow you, so they're about deepening a relationship rather than finding new audiences the way a reel does. They sit alongside the carousel in a platform's format toolkit; because they expire, their engagement rate is judged on taps, replies and exits rather than long-term likes.
See also