5 Instagram Story Tips for Businesses
Instagram Stories have revolutionized the ever-changing social media world for nearly two years. With the recent roll out of Instagram TV and video chat, it’s clear to see that Instagram is vying to be the one-stop shop for all things social.
The Facebook-owned photo and video sharing platform announced in June that Instagram Stories have more than 400 million daily users, which is double the number of daily users on Snapchat. Instagram also reported that one-third of the most viewed Stories come from business profiles, showing that the time to jump on the bandwagon is now.
When creating an Instagram Story strategy for clients, it’s important to know the audience we are targeting and what might capture their attention. Here are a few techniques we use at Off Madison Ave when creating Instagram Stories:
Plan content in advance.
Creating a monthly or yearly roadmap of events, seasonal topics and promotions to showcase on Instagram Stories enables us to keep Stories consistent and frequent.
Content creation can also be planned in advance through building out an excel document with copy, imagery and location tags to be used in the Story. Several of our clients prefer to be sent Stories in this format so they can post it themselves at a later date. Others prefer we manually upload the Stories and add the location, hashtags and of course, a few GIFs.
Engage with your community in a new way.
Instagram Stories offers you another creative way to speak to your community directly that is different than traditional Instagram posts. Stories are an opportunity to showcase a more playful and casual side to your brand. Many users who view Stories oftentimes aren’t even seeing your posts and vice versa. These audiences are often younger according to recent data so you are reaching a more broad base of users by incorporating Stories.
Set goals.
Although casual and fun, every Instagram Story should have a purpose. One major success we’ve had is driving hundreds of followers to our clients’ website through Instagram Stories.While business pages need a minimum of 10,000 Instagram followers to unlock the swipe-up function, don’t be discouraged if you’re not quite there. Simply make this your first goal. Additional goals can be:
Increase visits received on Instagram profile
Raise brand awareness
Drive Story impressions and completions
Try something new.
Instagram has been busy the past couple of years creating new ways to engage with the platform. Just with Instagram Stories alone we’ve seen the addition of GIFs, Highlights and now the ability to add music. We encourage you to use these new features and not fear them as it will open up more opportunities for your content to be seen. Diversifying content with Stories is also one of the best ways to mix up your feed and keep users engaged.
Measure success, analyze the data and optimize.
It’s important to report on Stories the same way you report on your all social media efforts. Reports and metrics should be sources of information and provide actionable insights. For example:
Track link clicks to gauge engagement
Monitor impressions for visibility
Review drop-rates to understand under-performing content
These five tips can help your business or client stand out on Instagram. By setting goals, planning content in advance and trying something new, your brand will be headed in the right direction toward Instagram Story success.
Check back soon for a look into how we’re leveraging Instagram’s newest feature, TV!