In this article, we’re going to look at some of the best ways to use Instagram stories.
Instagram Stories are incredibly popular, with over 70% of users watching them daily. Yet, only 36% of businesses use Instagram Stories to promote their products.
If you aren’t using Instagram Stories to their full potential, you could miss out on interaction – and even sales – from new and existing customers.
But, we get it. Constantly coming up with new ideas for what to post can be difficult, even tedious.
Let’s look with Render Perfect Productions!
Promote Your Products
One of the most straight-forward ways to use Instagram Stories to your advantage is to promote your products.
You can use Stories to announce a new product launch, or to generate buzz around your existing products.
And if you have 10,000 followers or more, then you can even include a direct link to your Instagram Story so that people can immediately head to the purchase page to buy your promoted product.
More and more people now start their online shopping journey on social media, with 60% of Brits and 54% of Americans purchasing goods via social media in the past 6 months.
Using Instagram Stories to promote your products just makes this shopping experience even easier for your customers.
Conduct a Poll
So, you probably know by now that social media isn’t just a tool you can use to boost sales. You actually need to be social.
Polls allow you to interact with your followers so you can increase engagement and keep your brand top-of-mind.
The poll sticker allows you to ask a question and offer two answers. Your followers can choose one answer and then you can share the results.
Promote Your Giveaway or Contest
If you really want to boost engagement on your Instagram page, then a giveaway or a contest is the way to go.
These types of posts get 3.5x more likes and 64x more comments than regular Instagram posts.
Using Instagram Stories is a great way to promote your giveaway or contest.
Share Special DMs or Mentions
The great thing about social media is the back and forth you can have with your customers. If a customer has something nice to say about you, then why not share it on your Instagram Story?
Stories like this are amazing for boosting credibility because it’s highly likely that potential customers will trust each other more than they trust what you say about your business yourself.
According to a study by PowerReviews, 94% of consumers list reviews and customer ratings as their most important consideration when shopping for products, above price and even family and friend recommendations.
Promote Your Latest Instagram Post
A straight-forward way to use Instagram Stories is to get more eyeballs on your latest Instagram post.
One of the key ranking factors of Instagram’s algorithm is timeliness. Instagram wants to show users posts that are recent and relevant – which gives anything you post a very short lifespan.
Promoting your latest post on your Story is a way to rejuvenate it and capture the attention of people you may have missed the first time around.
Share Behind the Scenes
Sharing footage from behind the scenes allows your followers to feel closer to your brand, creating a deeper level of trust, transparency, and authenticity.
You could show your office, or an exciting project you’re working on; anything that lets your followers peek behind the curtain and feel that bit closer to your brand.
Use a Swipe Up
If you have over 10,000 followers, then you’ll be able to access a new feature in your Instagram Stories, the swipe up.
The swipe up (as the name suggests) allows your followers to simply swipe up to take an action that you’ve asked them to – usually to visit your website or purchase a product.
Create a Countdown
Adding the countdown sticker to your Story can generate buzz and get your followers excited for an upcoming event, sale, or any other important date.
Your followers can get even more involved by sharing your countdown or tapping it to set an alert for when the countdown ends.
Share an Interview
Instagram Stories are a great place to share your video content. One interesting idea for video content is to create and share an interview.
Of course, not everyone can call Zendaya up to be in their Instagram Stories. But you don’t need access to famous people to share interesting interviews.
You could interview your team members. This is an exceptional way to give people a sneak look behind the scenes and can also help you build trust in your brand.
Give a Tutorial
A tutorial is a fantastic use case for Instagram Stories because each individual Story can be up to 15 seconds long – a great amount of time for breaking information up in a step-by-step way.
These stories are actually saved to a Tutorials highlights reel so that users can watch and re-watch them at their leisure.
The fact that you can add text to your Instagram Stories is another reason these work so well for tutorial type content.
About Render Perfect Productions:
Render Perfect has been built from the ground up to service growing businesses and help them realize their full visual storytelling and digital marketing potential. We’ve created a service offering and skill-set that spans video production, post-production, motion graphic design, 3D animation, web development, and video marketing strategy. Our insight and experience allow us to help clients make better planning decisions and get more out of their video production effort.
604 E Joppa Road