Instagram Stories present a convenient way to connect with fellow users and followers quickly. Microsoft’s research shows that the average human attention span has dropped from 12 seconds to 8 seconds, likely due to an increase in technology use. For businesses, Instagram Stories offer a solution to cater to this trend of shorter attention spans, as you can only upload videos up to 15 seconds long. The vertical format of this feature makes it ideal for mobile use, allowing for posting anytime, anywhere. Additionally, unlike traditional square Instagram posts, Stories are temporary, disappearing after a day, so they need not match the overall theme of your feed.
There are four factors that make Instagram Stories a valuable source of engagement for businesses.
Instagram Story for Business Offers the Ability to Post a Variety of Content
Instagram Stories for business provide the flexibility to share a diverse range of content. You are free to share anything you want without worrying about spoiling your Instagram feed’s “theme” or “aesthetic.” Whether it’s unveiling a new product or service, showcasing behind-the-scenes footage of your office, featuring an employee takeover, or announcing the winner of a recent social media contest, a mix of promotional and engaging content will keep your Instagram Story and brand exciting. Developing and sharing original content consistently will ensure that your followers remain interested and engaged. Craft content that entices your audience to keep coming back for more.
Instagram Helps Businesses Grow An Audience
Continuously searching for novel means to expand your audience should remain a priority as a business. When selecting the most suitable social media platform at the commencement, it’s advisable to acknowledge Instagram’s advantage in improving brand recognition. Additionally, Instagram has added various functionalities over time to facilitate the outreach of brands and companies to a larger audience.
Use location tags. You can include geographic location tags on your Instagram Stories now to make your business or brand more discoverable locally and globally. Whether you’re tagging a specific location, a city, or even a country, it is an effective way to reach different demographics.
Make sure to add hashtags to your Instagram Stories as it can enhance your profile’s discoverability and the visibility of your content to the wider Instagram audience. Like regular Instagram posts, you can add hashtags to the caption or comments section of your Instagram Stories.
Instagram Allows Businesses to Engage With Their Audience Regularly
To effectively engage with the vast majority of Instagram’s users who are millennials, it is necessary to invest time, commitment, and effort in communication. Having a thorough understanding of how to interact with this generation on social media is crucial. Fortunately, Instagram has recently introduced new Story features that can be utilized for this purpose.
Initiate a survey. By initiating surveys on Instagram Stories, you can encourage audience participation and promote engagement, as well as gather data and gain insight into your audience and followers’ preferences (or dislikes).
One way to engage with your audience on Instagram is through the “Ask me anything” feature on Stories. You can invite your followers to pose questions to you, or you can prompt them with your own. This functionality is an excellent means of fostering dialogue that allows both you and your audience to gain insights into each other. By using this feature, you increase your brand’s transparency while also deepening your connection with your followers.
Include other individuals by tagging them. Similar to the tagging of other users on Instagram feed posts, Instagram Stories allows you to do the same. Tagging other companies, brands, or influencers increases your brand’s visibility. This approach is efficient because tagging others in your Instagram Stories gives them the opportunity to repost your story, resulting in increased exposure.
Instagram Drives Traffic to Websites
Boost your business on Instagram by sharing content through Instagram Stories that leads to your website. If you own a retail or e-commerce company, you can guide your followers to buy your products online. According to a Facebook survey, one out of three Instagram users expressed more interest in a brand or product after encountering it on Instagram Stories. Recently, Instagram launched a new shopping feature for Stories to expand its e-commerce efforts. This perk allows businesses to:
Discover the notification shaped like a shopping bag which permits users to select and buy items from your website via your Instagram Story. Product stickers on Instagram provide a smooth and rapid way for users to obtain product details.
Integrate the “Swipe Up” function to boost website traffic through Instagram Stories. To guide your followers towards your blog, landing pages, and more, take advantage of this feature by including compelling and attention-grabbing CTAs (calls to action).
More Ways that Brands Can Use Stories
There are several ways in which brands can leverage Instagram Stories to enhance engagement with their audience. Below are some innovative approaches to utilizing the platform for fostering stronger customer interactions.
Create a quiz
Users of Instagram can now create multiple choice quizzes on their stories following an update on the platform’s poll functionality. You can access the Quiz option as a sticker at the upper-right-hand corner of your camera interface. Once there, you can formulate a question, generate various possible answers and finally post your story as you would normally do.
Promote deals and articles
There are several beneficial features on Instagram that can assist in marketing products, promotions, and content. For instance, the countdown attribute can generate a sense of urgency and excitement for upcoming events or product launches. Additionally, utilizing the Highlights section allows for educating followers about products and happenings. Another avenue to consider is hosting live Q&A sessions and implementing giveaways.
Repurposing content
If you want to make the most of your Instagram Stories, which disappear after a day, repurpose them on all your social media platforms. This approach allows you to save time and get more mileage out of your content. You can either link your Facebook and Instagram accounts to automatically share each post or choose to share them manually. In addition, you can download and store your Stories from Instagram and reshare them on Pinterest or TikTok.
BONUS: How to build a social media marketing plan
To achieve the utmost success in building a social media marketing strategy, it is crucial to follow these specific steps. Failure to do so may hinder your social media marketing endeavors.
Decide on goals and objectives
Clear social media marketing objectives and goals need to be established from the outset. These can be uncomplicated and direct, such as “maintain consistency by posting once daily for 30 days” or “connect with a minimum of two followers daily”.
By setting these goals, your team can establish a smooth and consistent flow, ultimately resulting in obtaining knowledge about effective methods and ineffective ones. Following this, you can become more particular about the targets involved in your social media promotional plan, such as “enhance follower tally by 10%”.
A helpful suggestion would be to apply the SMART goal framework to your social media marketing program.
Find your target audience
One of the worst mistakes in social media marketing is disregarding your audience. It is crucial to acquire adequate knowledge about your audience and to tailor your content accordingly. To achieve the most pertinent content, you should aim to be specific. You may consider developing an audience persona by identifying attributes such as age, language, location, average income, and potential concerns. Determine the group you intend to target and their classification.
Questions about your audience, such as those related to them, should also be addressed by your persona.
- What platforms do they use?
- How often do they use these platforms?
- What content do they like best?
- Who else are they following?
Once you acquire these responses, you can identify the sort of material that draws the particular audience and patrons you wish to acquire.
Research the competition
It is likely that your rivals have already established themselves on social media with a carefully planned approach. It is advisable to examine their activities and performance to gain insight into their methods. Conducting a competitor analysis will help you identify the tactics that are successful or unsuccessful for them.
You may create chances for your team by following this approach. For instance, if any of your rivals focuses on Facebook but lacks a substantial following on Instagram or Twitter, then it’s the perfect channel for your team to capitalize on.
Choose a platform
Afterwards, make a decision on which specific social media platforms to concentrate your work on. Consider the information you’ve collected about your intended demographic, along with the networks that are widely used in your field, and the available resources of your team.
To ensure maximum impact and success, limit yourself to creating profiles and devising an SMM plan for the platforms you can efficiently manage. Starting with one platform and expanding from there is a wise approach.
Create a content strategy
The saying “content is king” is probably familiar to you. Content holds the highest authority, so it’s crucial to prioritize your efforts in creating it. Ensure that you share a variety of content in various formats, such as articles, blogs, videos, and images, that will captivate and assist your audience. Following that, determine the optimal method of promoting your content on social media.
The content strategy you develop for your brand and its services may incorporate a variety of content types.
- Data and insights
- Targeted campaigns , like contests, polls, surveys
- Quick tips and how-tos
- Articles and blogs that are SEO-focused
- Industry news
- Announcements and updates
- Teasers for new products or services
- Holiday-related sales or giveaways
Align with your executive and legal teams early
The fundamental nature of social media is to engage socially, yet various brand accounts appear unidirectional. This is not due to a lack of recognition on the importance of conversing with their audience, but rather an impediment in doing so. This is particularly noticeable in industries such as healthcare, education, pharma, and politics. When developing social brand strategies, marketing teams must coordinate with their leadership and legal departments to establish a set of regulations – and limitations – that outline what their social team can or should respond to online.
Take advantage of software
Using tools to help with social media marketing can make the process easier and more successful. Don’t underestimate the importance of these tools and consider adding them to your tech stack to maximize your efforts.
- Competitive intelligence software to assist in your competitor analysis of what other brands are doing on social media. Social media marketers can use these tools to gather insights about a competitor’s social media strategy, as well as their strategy surrounding content and digital advertising.
- Content creation software to help design pieces for marketing initiatives. These tools often assist with content planning, the actual creation of marketing content, or both.
- Graphic design software to make eye-catching and visually appealing images to share with your audience. These images can accompany text posts or be stand-alone posts on image-centric platforms like Instagram.
- Social media monitoring software tracks, listens to, and gathers relevant content across social media. These tools can also identify trends within an industry, track your competitors, and better understand customer sentiment. Social media marketers use monitoring software to personalize their content based on demographics and respond to positive and negative comments.
- Social media suites analyze, manage, and monitor information on multiple social media accounts. Social media marketing teams turn to these tools to automate posts, engage with followers, and collect information across all social channels.
Adjust as needed
Make the most of the analytics provided by social media platforms to analyze your SMM strategies. Use the insights to recognize your most engaging posts, assess the growth of your followers, and scrutinize the demographics of your audience. Replicate your successful tactics and adjust or abandon the ones that don’t work.
