6 Tips to Ace Instagram Stories

We love Instagram Stories. Stories are a great way for brands, businesses, and individuals to interact with consumers.

Launched in August 2016, Instagram Stories quickly became popular with individuals, marketers, brands, and businesses. By 2019, 500 million people were already watching Instagram Stories every day.

In this blog, we’ll show you how to grab this massive opportunity and grow your brand organically using Instagram Stories.

Plan It Out

All good things start with a solid plan. Plan out what days and what types of content you'll post.

Create content in advance, search hashtags, add them to your captions, and schedule your posts ahead of time.

When your content is ready, and if you have a business or creator account, be sure to take advantage of Facebook Creator Studio for scheduling content. As an alternative, you could use third-party tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social to automate posting. This will save you time and give you meaningful insights to scale your production and business.

Show Your Life

Your followers will appreciate it if you share highlights from your daily life.  Create videos around your day-to-day activities, hobbies, and/or travel, and show the person behind the Instagram account.

Such videos draw maximum engagement and will take you one step closer to your followers. They will trust you and support your business even more.

It works great if you want to establish long-term relationships with your followers on Instagram.

Chiara Ferragni, a top fashion and beauty blogger and an influencer, has more than 24.3 million followers as of July 2021 on Instagram. So, we visited her profile for inspiration and to share it with our readers. And look what we found!

Her Instagram Stories are not only about clothes or accessories, as one might expect. Rather, they are about life, her family, and her friends.

Use Engagement Tools

We all know that engagement is one of the ranking factors for Instagram Stories. So why not make full use of the in-app features?

Instagram is one of the best social media platforms for in-app tools and features. It gives free access to creative elements like Stickers, polls, quizzes to make your Stories more fun, interactive, and engaging.

Take a moment to think creatively and come up with ideas that trigger user engagement. Now apply them to Story and see how it boosts user engagement.

Depending on the content type - whether image/video-based or text-based, choose from one or more elements and Stickers, and tap to add it.

Ask questions, post quizzes or polls, share coupons, drop announcements, or think about other activities that will boost audience engagement on Instagram.

Looking for a quick way to add them to your Story? Do this:

Tap the plus button at the top of the screen → Stories → Create. You'll see options at the bottom of the screen.

Tap any icon (i.e. Countdown, Quiz, Templates), now tap the screen to view next; if you have found something you like, tap on its dedicated icon and in the next screen, you can personalize and edit that sticker.

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Definitely Encourage Communication and Sharing

Instagram Stories are not permanent. Those photos, videos you share as Stories disappear after 24 hours, and with it some of your potential future buyers too.

To capture leads through Stories, keep your replies open. You can even move one step further by enabling and personalizing automated responses. But that’s a story for another day.

When creating Story, tap the gear button at the top left corner of the Instagram app, now -

• Go to → Replying. Now allow message replies from everyone.
• Scroll down and stop at → Sharing → Allow sharing to messages so that others can share your Story via messaging.

It's also a good idea to to allow message requests from everyone so others can send DM requests.

Once it's done, now is the time to actively ask and remind connections they can reach out for product inquiry or collaboration.

How about a Sticker? On the Create screen, tap on the Sticker button at the top; now type DM, DM Me, or any similar terms you may want to use at the search bar. Browse from the list; if you have found a good match, tap to select it.

Pair it with your video or image and place it at the right spot.

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Write Clear Instructions and CTAs

Don’t shy away from asking viewers to do what you want them to do next - visit website, check out products or store, or take some other kind of action.

A meaningful CTA (call to action) or an instruction can help you convert strangers into leads, followers into customers.

And it makes sense why. Many times we think it’s obvious for others to know what we want ... and we often get it wrong. Use Stories as customer touch points by adding CTAs.

Experiment with soothing, contrasting colours, texts, or highlights to make your CTAs pop.

Don’t forget to tag products. Stories are a great way to organically sell products on Instagram.

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Show Your Face as Often as Possible.

It's true – people feel more connected to a real face and voice. So don't be afraid to show your face in your stories and let your followers get to know you.

The more you show up in your own videos, the more your followers will personally connect with you and your brand.

When you first record yourself, you might find it difficult to speak to the camera. This mostly happens because, in the back of your mind, you're worried about what your audience might think.

But don’t let your fears hold you back from achieving your full potential. You can take baby steps and do a few practice sessions to see how it goes. This will give you much-needed confidence in yourself.

Instagram Stories are a hidden gem, a powerful weapon in your marketing arsenal. Explore all the features and mini tools for your Stories within the app. You’ll be surprised by how much you can achieve through them. 

Let your creative side out. Don’t be afraid to try out your thoughts because that’s the only way to find your winning strategy.