7 Ways to Market More Effectively with Instagram Stories
Instagram is a versatile social media platform. It’s not just for sharing photos with your friends and family anymore.
Marketers are using it to promote their products and gain loyal followings. Instagram is changing all the time, frequently adding new features. One of the most popular is Instagram Stories. This feature lets you put together multiple photos and videos to create a mini slideshow for your followers.
It allows you to expand upon your message in a way that a single post can’t. If you’re not using Stories, you’re missing out. Take a look at some ways to market more effectively with Instagram Stories, then get ready to add some of these tips into your own Instagram content strategy.
- Give a Sneak Peak with Stories Highlights
Stories Highlights is a really useful little feature that you can use to supplement your bio. Your bio is the place where new followers will come to see what you’re all about when they’re first getting to know your brand. Highlights are tabs that sit below your bio. You can customize them by adding photos and videos that correspond to various aspects of your brand.
Some companies choose to highlight things like their testimonials, business history, featured products, branded hashtags or specific campaigns. You can do a lot with Highlights to show followers what you have to offer. It’s smart to take advantage of this handy feature.
- Polls for Market Research
Polls are a fun tool for boosting engagement. You can ask fun, creative questions in order to elicit input from your followers. People love to share their opinions. So, why not use this resource to also obtain useful research to help guide your content planning and to give your followers what they want to see from your brand? It’s easy. Just ask questions that are relevant to your product and your brand.
The answers you get can inform you as to whether a subject is appealing to your audience or whether their interests lie elsewhere. Polls are a great way to generate content ideas when you’re stuck in a rut. Just ask your followers. They’re likely to tell you. If you need more followers, by the way, you can buy real Instagram followers to help boost your numbers while you’re building your Instagram platform.
- Give Shoutouts to Other Users
Instagram’s algorithm can be a little tricky. It seems to be based on engagement. The more people who are interacting with your posts, the higher you’ll rank in the feeds. One way the millions of users have discovered to be seen is actually to showcase the content of others. Find a post from one of your followers, or even from another business in your niche, then share it with your audience.
Be sure to tag the original poster in order to give proper credit. You can add these shoutouts to your stories for more visibility and to add to your slideshow. People generally appreciate the recognition, and you might even gain new followers from those you choose to feature.
- Let Someone Else Take Over Your Stories
An Instagram Stories takeover is where you let someone else run your Stories for the day. Usually, it’s an influencer whose niche is relevant to your product and who is recognizable by a large audience.
This typically requires you to pay for such sponsorship, but it can prove to be quite worthwhile in bringing you new followers and highlighting your offerings in a bright, shiny way. It’s good to shake things up sometimes. This tactic tends to be good at promoting awareness of a specific offer or campaign. Plus, it’s more subtle than an all-out collaboration with an influencer.
- Give Followers a Peek Behind the Scenes or of Upcoming News
People love to feel like they have the inside scoop. You can take advantage of this in lots of ways with Instagram Stories. One is to take them behind the scenes of your company. Give followers a tour of your headquarters. Let them virtually meet key players on your team. Show them the ins and outs of production.
It’s fun to see how the magic is made. You could also provide your audience with a sneak peek of something cool you have coming up in the future. Maybe it’s an awesome new product or an influencer collaboration. Whatever you decide, have fun with it. Get creative. That energy will spread to your audience and pay off in higher returns.
- Share Limited Time Offers and Sales
Limited time offers and sales create a sense of urgency in your customers. If they want to take advantage of the discounted price or the bonus product, they need to act fast. You can use Instagram Stories to promote these exclusive, short-term deals. Make this offer only for your Instagram followers, and you’ll garner even more interest. Your audience will feel special knowing this one’s only for them.
- Host a Q&A
Instagram Stories allows you to include video. So, why not try a live video with a chance for your followers to ask questions of your brand? You could choose your company President to lead the session or maybe have a panel made up of key players within your organization. It’s also possible to feature your guest influencer to lead the question and answer session. You can customize the format to meet your product and audience needs.
These are a mere handful of ways you can market more effectively with Instagram Stories. The only limit is your imagination. And your budget. However, it doesn’t have to cost a lot to create Stories that intrigue and invite your audience. Have fun with it.
