Want to expand your reach, engage your audience, and start generating a following on social media? Consider these 13 ways to start using Instagram Stories this year. These handy tips can help set your social media marketing strategy up for success.
If you’ve ever struggled with boosting your brand visibility while keeping your audience interested and engaged, these marketing tips will help you get started.
Social media platforms gained 1.3 million users every day in 2020. Today, over 4.2 billion people use social media worldwide. Instagram alone has more than 2 billion monthly users.
In fact, 200 million Instagram users visit a business profile each day. Over 80% of people use Instagram to research products and services. Adding Instagram Stories to your social media marketing strategy could help you reach more customers online.
Not sure how to start using Instagram Stories? Learning how to use the different Instagram Stories features can strengthen your social media marketing strategy. You can engage more customers online and remain relevant with your target audience.
Set your Instagram strategy up for success! Get started by using these 13 effective marketing tips today.
1. Share Useful Links
Most Business or Creator accounts now allow you to post external links in your Stories. Sharing external links could help you generate more website traffic. You can also use this feature to boost online leads and sales.
Instagram doesn't allow functioning links anywhere outside of account bios. Adding them to your Stories could help you boost engagement.
When adding a link to your Stories, make sure to use a strong call to action. Make sure your CTA is clear, concise, and urgent. For example, you can use language like "START FREE TRIAL" or "BOOK NOW."
Let your followers know what's next once they follow the link.
Consider using an eye-catching GIF to encourage more interactions as well. For example, you can use a “click the link” GIF when posting your Stories.
If you find you don’t have the link sticker available you can simply direct Stories viewers to your bio. Encourage them to click on the link to boost engagement.
2. Make an Announcement
Consider using Stories to keep your followers up to date with your company announcements. For example, you can use Stories to mention new posts, new products, or industry-relevant news.
Sharing announcements will help you keep consumers informed. You can also add a link to your announcements and direct people to your blog. Then, they can gather more information directly from your website.
Sharing timely news can help you generate immediate excitement and anticipation, too! Consider ‘teasing’ your new products before revealing the full announcement.
Using these social media marketing tips can really help you keep consumers engaged and interested.
3. Start Collaborating
There are now over 500 million active daily Instagram Stories users. In fact, 70% of Instagram users watch stories every day. Only 36% of businesses use Stories to promote their products, though.
Meanwhile, one in three Instagram users is more interested in a product after seeing it in their Stories.
Don't miss the chance to market your offerings using Instagram this year. Instead, consider collaborating with other brands online. Collaborating could help expand your digital reach.
Consider working with other businesses or social media influencers. Influencers already have a strong following online. You can leverage their existing audience to build your own.
Use the tag feature to shout out or promote another brand.
4. Go Live
You can leverage the fear of missing out (FOMO) by posting live videos through Stories. Live content can help you generate more viewers and engagement. Some of your subscribers will receive a notification the instant you go live, too.
They'll want to tune in before they miss the chance to view your live stream.
You can use live streams to unveil new products, document a live event, or hold a Q&A session.
5. Post a Poll
As you explore these Instagram ideas, consider finding new ways to learn from your customers. For example, you can use the Poll feature in Stories to drive interactions.
Polls can help you gather customer feedback or market research. The responses you generate can help you learn more about your audience. You could improve your social media marketing strategy further with the data you collect.
6. Ask Compelling Questions
Use the Questions sticker and invite your customers to ask any questions they have. You can also use this feature to ask your customers questions.
The Questions sticker can help you encourage customer interactions. Show customers you care about their thoughts and opinions. Otherwise, consider using this feature to quiz your customers.
7. Use Quirky Emoji Sliders
Show off your fun side with a reaction slider by adding a quirky emoji to make it your own.
You can use this feature to boost engagement and learn from your audience. For example, you can gauge how much they like a product by asking them to interact with an emoji in your Stories. This is a great way to boost your engagement rate.
8. Boost Awareness
Want to direct your followers to a new post on your feed? Consider using fun, eye-catching stickers and GIFs. Let them know about new announcements, products, and post through your Stories.
Use hashtag stickers to expand your reach when using Instagram, too.
9. Encourage Chatting
You can use the Chat sticker to engage and interact with your followers as well. This function allows you to choose who is accepted to join the chat.
You can lead conversations, test new project ideas, or create quick focus groups.
10. Build Anticipation
Use the countdown sticker to build anticipation for a product release or sales event. Building anticipation could help you generate more leads and sales.
11. Share Your Location
If you want to generate more Instagram Stories views, consider adding hashtags and location tags to your posts. As people search for content by location, your content could appear.
12. Create a Contest
If you're searching for ways to generate more engagement, consider using Stories to host a contest or giveaway a free product. Promote your competition on your feed for even more engagement.
Make sure to use the right hashtags to expand your reach. Encourage people to follow you as part of the submission process, too!
13. Schedule Your Stories
It’s important to share your stories at the times of the day that you know your audience will be more likely to see them, OR when they may have a need for your product or service. Often, this is likely to be outside of your normal working hours. There are lots of scheduling tools now available that allow you to schedule stories in advance so you can maximise the number of eyes on your content! Some of the tools we often recommend to our clients include Later and Hootsuite.
Need help getting started? We're here to help.
Contact us today to discuss your Instagram strategy.
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