EngageYa’s breakthrough enables publishers to boost engagement by importing social content, while brands can use dynamic format to reach wider audiences.

NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2021 – The leading digital technology firm EngageYa has announced the global launch of Storiya, which enables publishers to deploy the popular social “stories” model on the open web. The product offers users modern content experiences and expands story-based advertising to new audiences.

For brands, Storiya offers a chance to extend the reach of existing campaigns in a format which has proven phenomenally successful on social platforms. Publishers and any site with content can deploy a modern storytelling model that has been proven to draw young audiences, keep users on-site, and convert for advertisers.

“Whether you’re a journalist or a brand, the social stories paradigm is perfect for telling your story,” said Barak Frohlinger, co-founder, and CEO. “There is simply no reason to for it to be limited to the social media sites. Everyone can use it, all should benefit, and business have a chance to truly turbo-charge.”

Since its beta launch about a year ago, Storiya has been implemented on dozens of sites in Europe and the Middle East, boosting engagement and creating new inventory, with an emphasis on both news sites and lifestyle and vertical publications. As part of the full launch, Israel-based EngageYa has established representations in the United States and parts of Western Europe as well.

The story format first became familiar in the mid-2010s on Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook – featuring video, photos and text overlays in a vertical aspect ratio and dynamic style. More recently it has been deployed by LinkedIn and Twitter as well.

Storiya enables publishers to integrate channels by importing to their sites social content – including their own Instagram stories, Tweets, YouTube videos and Pinterest content. It can also create automated feeds of articles from various categories and engage users with polls and quizzes. And it enables stories to be built from scratch with its proprietary content management system – all with the reaction and sharing functions familiar from social media.

The unique product allows publishers a choice of placement types as an entry into the experience. One is the classic circles carousel familiar from Instagram (above image, left). Another is a squares carousel in the style used on Facebook (above image, right), ideal for placement within articles. In both cases Storiya resides within the publisher’s user experience and once users leave it they have either clicked on an ad or returned to the publisher’s site.

An innovative third option – Inread Storiya – presents the stories already open within the text of an article, in standard IAB formats (above right).

“While technology is a disruptor it can also turbo-charge industries if they adapt and use it wisely,” Frohlinger said. “EngageYa has been helping publishers and brands with native advertising technology for years, and with Storiya we can take it to the next level.”