23snaps, The Facebook For Families, Adds Multimedia “Stories” To News Feed

23snaps, an iOS, Android, Web and Windows app that we’ve previously likened to a ‘Facebook for families‘, has added a neat feature that lets you tell better stories by combing text, photos and video in a single update posted to your news feed. It’s an iteration the UK startup says was inspired by the way its users already use the app to share moments, such a parents posting updates about their children.

After observing that 20 percent of 23snaps posts contain multiple photos and 40 percent include detailed descriptions, the startup wanted to offer a better way for users to create a narrative from a series of related updates — noting that it often takes more than one photo or comment to tell the best family stories.

The resulting feature is sort of obvious in retrospect and makes for a far more creative approach to the usual, sometimes mundane, social network update, even though an app like 23snaps already has a very captive audience. Last May, the company told me that photo and video uploads have an engagement rate of 90%, which it claims compares to Facebook’s 10% engagement on an individual’s posts.

The ‘Stories’ feature is nice and simple to use, too. It works much like adding an individual text, photo or video update, except that these can be stringed together infinitely, mixing all three mediums.

“Stories takes that one step further by allowing parents, who are great natural storytellers, to use an unlimited combination of photos, videos and text to share a single narrative from beginning to end, tell stories about their children’s lives and share them privately with loved ones,” says Meaghan Fitzgerald, Chief Marketing Officer of 23snap, in a statement.

It’s also the kind of feature I wish Facebook would add as it might actually force people to become better story tellers. Ok, perhaps not.

Founded in June 2012, 23snaps says it’s now surpassed 500,000 users in 179 different countries. That’s registrations — both parents and extended family members — of which around 60% are active each month.