Instagram stories is a feature that lets people publish videos and photos that disappear after 24 hours. Unlike your usual Instagram posts, Instagram stories don’t appear in the newsfeed. Instead, they appear in a bar at the top of newsfeeds.
Once posted, stories appear on the top of your Instagram newsfeed, they have a colourful ring around the profile picture of the person who published the story.
There are many benefits to using Instagram stories for business.
The first benefit of using Instagram stories for business is the fact that they appear right at the top of people’s Instagram newsfeed, which is prime real estate unlike posts that can be buried among many other posts.
The second benefit of using Instagram stories for business is that they disappear after 24 hours which means you can use them to promote your business, products, services or events without cluttering your Instagram profile or with promotional posts.
And, if you have an Instagram business account, Instagram story features include the Instagram story swipe up. This feature gives you the ability to write on your story “swipe up for link” instead of saying “click on the link in the bio” as a call-to-action.
Thanks to the Instagram story swipe up, people can automatically click on the link you want them to be redirected to, instead of having to look for it in your bio.
Another benefit of using Instagram stories for business is that they can be much more engaging than standard posts because they are visual and you can add different types of effects and Instagram story filters which makes your content much more interesting to Instagram story viewers.
Plus, because Instagram stories disappear after 24 hours it incentivises people to watch your story to avoid missing out because they are time sensitive.
Lastly, creating Instagram stories will benefit you greatly because people prefer consuming content from brands in the Instagram stories format because they come across as more real, more authentic, more informal than standard posts.
With stories, people can only engage with them by either watching the story, sending a personal message to the creator of the story or by swiping up to get redirected to the link. Stories cannot be shared and there is no option for them to like the story either.
In order to find out more information about the engagement you’re receiving for your Instagram stories, you need to first, check your analytics. By checking your analytics, you’ll be able to find out more about what your audience is interested and adapt your content accordingly. Besides, if you know how to view private IG accounts, you can get ideas from others’ Instagram stories and replicate them in your own IG account too.
If you’d like to take your Instagram marketing to the next level, and increase the results you’re getting from your current Instagram marketing efforts considerably, download my FREE Instagram report, titled The Top 15 Instagram Marketing Strategies That Drive Traffic And Sales. Simply enter your name and email and I’ll instantly send you the report.
You can gauge the popularity of your Instagram story by clicking on the eyeball symbol on the bottom left hand side that tells you how many people have viewed your story and their names. The more views you’ve received, the more engaging your story is.
For more detailed analytics, you can click on the “insights” tab which looks like a graph, then click on “content” and go to “stories”.
There, you’ll be able to see more specifics, such as “forward” which means the number of people who have fast forwarded your story. If you feel this number is high, it could mean that some of your content was not very interesting to them.
“Back” means how many people rewound your story to watch some sections again. This is a positive indication.
“Next story” indicates the number of people who have skipped your story to watch someone else’s.This indicates that your story was not interesting or relevant to them.
And finally, “exited” refers to the people who have left your story. This could be because they followed your call-to-action which is positive engagement, but it could also mean they just left your story because they didn’t want to continue watching.
Once you understand how your stories were consumed through analytics, you’ll be able to adapt your stories accordingly if you notice a pattern.
The other strategy to increase your engagement is varying your content. It’s important to vary your content so you can test what performs better, but also because you don’t want to become too predictable with your stories.
Some of your Instagram stories could be educational content, such as sharing some tips and insights relevant to your audience. For example, if you’re in the golf industry, your Instagram story could share the mistakes to avoid with golf swings.
Another type of Instagram story you could share, is information about something you’d like your audience to check out.
For example, if you published a blog post you’d like people to check out, your Facebook story could be a summary of your blog post with a call-to-action inviting Instagram story viewers to read the whole blog post.
Another popular type of Instagram story is behind-the-scene footage and pictures to humanize your brand. In other words, Instagram stories can act as an informal way to introduce members of your team in a more casual setting and provide an opportunity for people to learn more about you personally.
Another type of Instagram story you can create is a display of your products with demonstrations on how they work and what they do. This can be a good opportunity for people to discover your products in a more fun and engaging way.
If you’d like to take your Instagram marketing to the next level, and increase the results you’re getting from your current Instagram marketing efforts considerably, download my FREE Instagram report, titled The Top 15 Instagram Marketing Strategies That Drive Traffic And Sales. Simply enter your name and email and I’ll instantly send you the report.
The other strategy to increase your engagement and your Instagram story viewers is taking advantage of all the different Instagram story features available that allow you to enhance and customize your story.
One of them is Instagram story filters, to turn your pictures and videos into more eye catching visuals.
Other Instagram story features include location stickers, time stickers, GIF stickers, name stickers, and poll stickers. So if relevant you can use any stickers to entice people to engage with your story further.
For example, you can use the poll sticker to ask people for their opinion or answer a question. Alternatively, you can add a location sticker to state the location of where your story took place.
Instagram stories also include the ability to draw on them by offering different pen styles and the ability to add text to stories with a choice of different text fonts so your story can be understood visually even without sound.
Therefore, with the wide range of tools available to enhance your story such as Instagram story filters, make sure you take advantage of some, to make your Instagram stories are much more attention grabbing, but don’t go overboard as you don’t want to clutter your stories too much either.
Another strategy to increase your engagement is watching the stories of your competitors or the stories of people in the same industry as you. If you notice that some types of stories tend to perform better, then try to create similar ones for your business.
Finally, to increase your Instagram stories’ engagement further end your story with a strong call-to-action. It’s not enough to tell people “click on the link in the bio”. You need to emphasize why it’s important for them to click on the link in the bio and what the benefit is to them.
For example, you could use the Instagram story swipe up feature and your call-to-action could be “swipe up to get complimentary access to my brand new recipe book, valued at $30 and discover over 50 delicious vegan recipes”.
This type of call-to-action is much more enticing than simply stating “swipe up for more information”.
If you’d like to take your Instagram marketing to the next level, and increase the results you’re getting from your current Instagram marketing efforts considerably, download my FREE Instagram report, titled The Top 15 Instagram Marketing Strategies That Drive Traffic And Sales. Simply enter your name and email and I’ll instantly send you the report.
Check out the Top 20 Social Media Marketing Youtube Channels list for more social media marketing tips.
About the Author
Corinna Essa is known internationally as the go-to person when it comes to social media marketing.
Corinna owns a social media marketing company helping businesses around the world leverage the power of social media without doing any of the legwork. Her company has been featured in many media outlets including Sky Business news, Working Women magazine, Ymagazine, Tasmanian Times, Channel 7 and 101fm.
Corinna is also the author of 2 bestselling books “Money On Demand – The 16 Fastest Ways to Becoming a Millionaire Online” and “Reach: The SECRETS to converting your social media audience into your network marketing downline fast”
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