Customer spotlight

StoryStream

StoryStream is an AI-powered visual commerce platform, founded in 2011 and headquartered in the U.K. StoryStream empowers marketers at some of the biggest brands in the world to identify, source, and manage user-generated content to engage customers and deliver authentic shopping experiences.

3 million

UGC videos generated

100+

clients served

20%

reduction in bounce rate

66%

boost in time on page

Challenge

Marketers know that the most compelling language to promote their brand often doesn’t come from their own wordsmithing, but from their customers. StoryStream takes that premise and applies it to modern day consumer trends by elevating and celebrating user-generated content (UGC) in a way that’s secure and compliant for brands and creators. Clients monitor social content, when they spot something they’d like to use in their own marketing channels, StoryStream helps source and repurpose the content straight from their customers — creating a UGC-centered content strategy at scale.

“UGC is authentic. It takes the brand out of the conversation and allows a consumer to feel like they’re interacting with another person who’s had a positive experience,” says Matt Sykes, Head of Marketing. “We take the heavy lifting out of turning UGC into sellable, shoppable content.”

When StoryStream launched in 2013, the phrase “social video” usually meant YouTube links in Facebook statuses and spotty live streams on Twitter. Instagram was limited to single, filtered images (Amaro, Mayfair, or Lo-Fi, anyone?), and the first iteration of TikTok was still a year away. Yet as video became more ubiquitous on social, StoryStream identified it as the next medium to serve their clients.

“As user-generated content has evolved to become increasingly video-first, so have the requirements of our customers,” says Joe Baskerville, CTO. “We always need to be ahead of the curve,” adds Matt. “We were seeing more clients use more video, so we needed to ensure that we were delivering the extent of what can be unlocked from social content.”

To best meet this predicted demand, StoryStream required a scalable, secure, and seamless solution to integrate video into its existing workflows, without disrupting or creating UX friction for their customers.

“Our customers demand a secure and reliable service. We know with Vimeo we’re achieving a high-level of coverage, and that when issues do present we’re able to have them diagnosed, triaged, and fixed with minimum delay.”

Joe Baskerville, CTO

Solution

StoryStream had three non-negotiables when evaluating options to power their vision for video. They needed a platform that could:

Scale quickly, so they could remain agile while continuing to bring value and new offerings to their clients.Integrate seamlessly, so as not to disrupt the user experience.Offer ample flexibility and security to successfully serve global enterprise customers like Porsche, John Lewis, Samsung, and L’Oréal.

“We found each of these things in Vimeo,” says Joe.

Using Vimeo’s robust API and white label player, Joe and his team tailored and folded Vimeo into StoryStream’s existing workflow smoothly, making user-generated video content accessible to clients without disrupting the user experience. “We were able to slot Vimeo in neatly with minimum fuss,” he says, adding that Vimeo’s enterprise security and uptime SLAs ensure a positive experience for their clients, every day.

“Our customers demand a secure and reliable service. That means our experiences — which live on some of the world’s most visited websites — need to work 24/7,” says Joe. “We know with Vimeo that we’re achieving a high level of coverage, and when issues do present, they’re diagnosed, triaged, and fixed with minimum delay.”


Outcome

Since partnering with Vimeo, StoryStream has redefined the product experience for its customers, empowering them to tap into more video content, from more of its customers, more often. To date, StoryStream has helped source over 3 million pieces of UGC video on behalf of its clients through Vimeo.

When StoryStream customers use video UGC as part of their customer engagement strategy, they see a notable uptick across their core site metrics. Visitors to their site that engage with video content show an average increase of 66% in time on page; a 20% reduction in bounce rate; and a boost to overall session duration of over 1.5x — a testament to the power of video.

“Brands understand that there’s a requirement to produce more and more content. At the same time, as more of the purchasing cycle goes online, consumers have a desire to watch more video — they demand it,” says Matt. “Video has become indispensable.”

“The ability to host a significant amount more video has been transformational for our customers,” says Joe. “That we can move so quickly is down to all involved parties, our partners included. Vimeo has enabled our business to grow in lock-step with our ambition.”


"Our customers demand a secure and reliable service. We know with Vimeo we're achieving a high-level of coverage, and that when issues do present we're able to have them diagnosed, triaged, and fixed with minimum delay."
Joe BaskervilleCTO
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