Lately it seems everyone wants to know How to use Instagram Stories. Instagram launched its ‘story’ feature in August 2016 and it quickly threw Snapchat off its fast growing throne. Instagram stories offer businesses a great opportunity to reach a higher number of people by updating their audience with relevant information and in a fun and engaging format. These disappearing photos and videos might be here today and gone tomorrow, but they deserve a permanent place in your marketing strategy.
Instagram stories are a good way to keep your loyal followers engaged while being accessible to new audiences. Many of the features introduced on Instagram allow you to be creative with it so you can tell the best digital story possible. These include polls, live Instagram, boomerangs, mentioning other users, stickers and swipe up links.
Here are our top reasons why you should start using stories to increase engagement with your followers.
Stories for Storytelling
Content has steered away from structured curation and has moved towards a more genuine, interactive, ‘real time’ approach. Brands that get on board storytelling can create brand loyalty which increases the chance of purchase and referrals.
Storytelling through Instagram Stories is a purpose built solution! Use each frame to reveal a little more and engage your followers right to the end. It’s perfect for announcing new news, educating on a topic or creating a strong bond between yourself and your followers that feels personal and authentic.
Airbnb uses storytelling to engage with their audience about new travel destinations through polls and open ended questions. It creates a sense of process, allowing users to join the journey.
Get Discovered
Consistency and frequency in posting will place you at the top of featured stories to watch by your followers. It’s simple – the more you upload the more views you will get. Instagram users will find that, the explore page features accounts that are related to a specific hashtag or location, so if you are creating Instagram Stories and featuring hashtags in them, you have a greater opportunity of being found by new potential followers and growing your account.
The explore page features certain accounts based on relevancy and frequency. As you can see, ‘top live’ location ‘Sydney’ help accounts reach more people.
Create Stronger Bonds
As a brand, being open with your audience establishes a sense of loyalty and trust. In return, this will increase your brand recall and can lead to increased conversions over time. Some of the ways you can do this is by creating behind the scenes content. With stories, a brand can tell a story of what happens behind the scenes of their finished work. For example, a clothing brand such as Nike takes you on a behind the scenes tour of what happens during a photoshoot. This technique gives users insight into the hard work behind a brand.
Minimal wallet designers, Bellroy use “Behind the Scenes” on their Instagram story to show users their process when it comes to shooting product content.
From a marketing perspective, developing and integrating Instagram stories into your social strategy is essential to driving more engagement. We believe that storytelling is an important component to engage with your audience on a deeper level. If you need some help integrating Instagram Stories into your social media strategy, contact us today for an initial consultation.
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