Did you know that you can use Instagram Stories to market your business? It’s one of the most effective ways to keep your most loyal followers engaged while leaving your content open for new audiences to discover!
Think of Instagram Stories as additional branding for your online persona. It gives you a way to explain your content, share behind the scenes, tell a story, and build your brand while you get a direct connection with those that follow you.
Stories are a fun and quick way for your business to engage with your audience organically and effortlessly with the opportunity of driving sales traffic. And, if you’re living under a rock, these posts get deleted after 24 hours so you don’t have to worry about your audience getting sick of seeing them (and reporting your page)!
7 ways to maximise Instagram Stories for your business!
1. Behind-the-scenes
Probably the easiest content to create! This type of Story takes your audience behind-the-scenes for a VIP experience! This adds some proof of authenticity which allows you to tell the story behind the content that appears on your feed.
This technique instantly catches the attention of your audience who are always keen on finding out how things are done at HQ behind closed doors. With our Instagram account @keller.au, we’ve added a highlights tab so our audience could easily have access to Keller BTS Stories.
2. Tutorials
Showcase a tutorial! Tutorials are a great way to make the most of the Stories feature! Educational content is a tried and tested way of piquing audience interest so go ahead, try something simple like a short how-to video and see how many viewers enjoy your content.
Since story posts present themselves in a sequential manner, this makes audience experience interactive and highly engaging.
3. Polls
Another cool feature of Insta Stories is the ability to run simple polls with your audience. Polls are an interactive way to communicate with your audience which help capture valuable information you can use in future marketing efforts.
On our account @keller.au, we regularly conduct what we call Pivs Polls as Stories where we ask our audience a series of questions to which they have to answer through selection. Through this effort, we can gauge what piques the interests our followers. The data we’ve gathered from their answers can be used to enhance our marketing strategy.
4. Customer Feedback
Instagram Stories are custom-made for obtaining valuable interactive feedback from customers. As I mentioned, polls are effective in getting information but you can opt to an even more interactive form of engagement: a Q & A session.
5. Special Announcements
With Stories being available not only on Instagram but on Facebook as well, it’s the perfect platform to run promotions or special announcements.
If you have new merchandise coming out, running a contest, or announcing a Christmas sale, Stories make for a desirable distribution channel!
6. Promos
Running on a sense of urgency, Instagram Stories is great to use for time-bound deals! With its 24-hour viewing window, you can maximise this feature to run mini-promotions that entice your followers to immediately take action which eCommerce brands will truly enjoy.
7.User-Generated Content
Finishing the list on a high we come to User Generated Content (UGC). For those who don’t know, UGC refers to any type of media that is created by a brand’s followers or consumers, rather than by the company itself. UGC reflects the consumers feelings towards your brand which makes your content relatable. And because it’s relatable, UGC is considerably more memorable than any other type of content such as ads.
This type of content checks all the points in customer engagement because you turn passive followers to active ambassadors of your brand.
With a variety of ways to execute a strategy with Instagram Stories, you can never go wrong! Consider testing all of them out to see which works for your marketing strategy and don’t be afraid to look at other accounts for inspiration, you’ll be surprised how brands are taking Insta Stories to the next level! The possibilities are endless, all you need to do is be creative!