How Can Instagram Stories Be Beneficial?
Instagram stories are a feed of photos or videos that disappear from your profile after 24 hours, like many of you may know. There can be many benefits of integrating stories into the content strategy of your business. Additionally, recent Instagram stats stated that one-third of the most-viewed stories come from brands. When a story is posted, it is presented at the top of the user’s screen where anyone can see it easily. When consistent with posting stories, your business is constantly putting themselves out there to make some noise and create a name for themselves. This is a fairly simple social media marketing strategy filled with unlimited possibilities, and a variety of content that allows a brand to reach a large number of people.
According to Sprout Social, Instagram stories are informal which “represents a stark contrast from the more “optimized” or salesy content you might see on your main feed.” This allows companies to give off a more personal feel to those invested in their brand. Followers will appreciate being involved with a brand that expresses their personality. Adding numerous posts together to help tell a story or provide information is a great tool for businesses. They can stitch together quality clips of their brand, show funny content, and link important information back to their home page or website all from one story. Deciding with your team who your brand is and what you want to say will be the first step towards great Instagram story marketing.
Personalizing each story in your own way creates differentiation from your competitors as well. Doing the little things as a company will provide huge payoffs in the future. It will increase your follower base and potentially create more profit, aiding in whatever the goal might be that your business is striving for. Creating time to understand and utilize everything there is to offer in Instagram stories can tremendously benefit your business.
Add Variety to Stories
There are many elements of an Instagram story that can help benefit your business. This includes unlimited possibilities on what to post, when, and how to make it creative and unique.
The first thing to start with might be using eye-catching images paired with emojis, stickers, or hashtags. This creates an appealing story that people will pause to further look at. Additionally, proper background music or sounds can go far for your posts as a business. When posting a video, use short and captivating videos in order to keep users interested and more apt to watch your story time and time again.
According to an article on Sendle: “Generally speaking, every marketing strategy should result in one or more of the following outcomes: increase your engagement, relate with other brands, boost your brand’s reputation, build relationships with potential customers or sell your products and services.” Increase engagement through the number of people commenting, reacting, or messaging you with the desire to learn more. This results in positive relationships with each individual when you can respond in an appropriate and helpful manner. As a business, you also want to look at competitors in the industry to see how they are doing and what might be working well, or not so well to them. Use that information to better your brand and excel in your work.
Every business wants to hold a positive thought in the minds of followers and when that customer relates to you, they are much more likely to become a loyal follower. With hundreds of stories present on an individual’s Instagram page, it is crucial for your business to create a reputation for yourself that brings people to your page and motivates them to click that follow button. This can go even further with word of mouth. Relationships made along the way with followers could result in them sharing your business with their friends and family.
Add Anticipation to Posts
Stories have an addictive way of giving people the desire to keep clicking through stories because they never know what will come next. This draws in a large crowd and inspires them to stay engaged in your content. On average, 80% of people ‘Forward Tap’ through Instagram stories rather than ‘Exit’, proving that people are anxious to see what's next, as explained by Hopper. This can also be interpreted as FOMO (fear of missing out). If followers have this feeling when viewing your stories, you are doing something right!
One feature that could be utilized in your stories to build anticipation are announcements. This could include general information, the addition of a new blog author, or maybe the release of an anticipated blog post. All are ways to bring followers back to your page continuously. Using polls on Instagram creates an easy way for users to engage with your post which turns into feedback your business can utilize. Just simply ask a question and offer two responses followers could click on within the poll. In a way, it's a win-win for the user and the business. Using the question stickers allows you to ask followers a specific question and they are able to respond back with their answer or opinions. Once again, this is a great feedback option.
The countdown feature is a newer addition on Instagram stories. With this feature you can easily promote competitions, announcements, and forecasted events. This entices people to get excited for what is about to happen and they will be more apt to check in the following day to see what is being said on your stories. With these interesting and fun options, there's such a wide variety of options you can publish when creating an Instagram story for your business. These are only a few elements of everything Instagram has to offer but if you are interested in looking into story features further, go ahead and click one of the provided links below!
Resources
Barnhart, B. (2021, September 28). Instagram Stories: Best Practices and inspiration to engage your followers. Sprout Social. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/instagram-stories/.
Cronin, N. (2021, June 29). 14 brilliant ways to use Instagram stories for business. Hopper HQ Instagram Scheduler. https://www.hopperhq.com/blog/instagram-stories-for-business/.
Steigrad, L. (2021, June 9). Instagram stories marketing: How to use them to boost your business. Sendle Blog. https://blog.sendle.com/instagram-stories-marketing?gclid=CjwKCAjw49qKBhAoEiwAHQVTo2V3ViCQ6UIT6MtguI2HNn_DhMeGItJb2imzXmN-8liVjVq5KprHXRoCpUoQAvD_BwE.
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