Ways to Represent Your Business Using Instagram Stories

An outlet where users can showcase where they are, what they’re doing, who they’re with and what they’re eating. Instagram stories are only a few seconds glimpse that last on the app for 24 hours. Displayed at the top of every home page are circular queued icons of users that you follow that have published a story within the last 24 hours. That’s where you can view stories, as well as respond to them with a chat message or react with an emoji.

Instagram launched stories back in August 2016, since then over 250 million users have started participating in sharing their own content this way.Plenty of businesses have seen growth in engagement with posting content to stories, as they have the freedom to publish disappearing content that reflects the brands personality. With a number of different quirks and ways to customize a story to make it your own there are many tools that can be used by a marketer to make your brands profile stand out.

When planning out stories for your business you want to make sure that you have a clear purpose that allows users get more familiar with your product. By having a clear beginning, middle and end to your stories they will be more likely to stay engaged till the end. You can moderate this by viewing your exit rates along with other stats using a business profile. Instagram is fortunate enough to offer a number of free tools brands can use to their advantage to attract more engagement and get themselves acknowledged.

 

Tagging

Something as simple as tagging a user in a story by typing in the handle will notify them in their messages, allowing them to reshare it onto their own story as if it was their own. By resharing to your followers, this gives them the privilege to tap your story and view the account it was originally posted from.

 

Stickers

Once you’ve captured a photo or video you wish to post on your story, you can then spice it up by adding stickers. To access, when making a story there is a smiling square at the top right you need to tap. By tapping, a screen will slide up where all sticker options will prompt. There are plenty of options, from ones that are interactive, gifs that will add fun animations or just ones to make your story more visually appealing.

 

Location Stickers

Adding a location sticker will drive traffic to a page for those that have also used the tag or to those who look up a specific location. Followers will be able to tap location and see other stories happening around same place. To do so you need to choose the location tag and start typing in wherever you are, the location will show up if it has been registered. If your location hasn’t been registered follow these steps to do so.

 

Hashtags

With a similar concept, if you add a sticker and type in a hashtag that is relevant to your post, your story will appear in searches for the hashtag(s) used. Viewers can then tap on it and see who else is using it. When choosing hashtags, it is best to use words or sayings that connect with your brand or message you’re trying to perceive. Display purposes is a free webpage that curates hashtags that are trending on Instagram. Picking hashtags that are popular and trending is beneficial because the more people using the tag, means the more people that may stumble across your post.

 

Poll Stickers

Getting your followers to participate in a poll as a business can help you gauge what exactly your consumers want by getting feedback straight from them. When setting up a poll the default answers are a simple ‘Yes’ and ‘No’, but Instagram allows you to customize the answer options as you please. You can use it to compare products and get quick input. For example, asking your followers what they want to see more of, with two photos comparing each other.

*Image sourced from Instagram Ads.

Quiz

Using the quiz sticker is a new interactive way to increase engagement with your follower base. It offers multiple choice formatted questions where your followers can vote on your quiz, they will instantly be able to if they got it right and you will see how many votes each answer received and who participated.

*Image sourced from Status Social.

Product Stickers

Instagram’s new sticker allows business profiles to showcase products by placing the stickers, to then be tapped and taken to the products page with more info to purchase straight from the webpage. For steps on how to set this up check out this helpful video . If you need some tips on how to get started with selling your products on Instagram, check out this page

*Image source from Adweek.

 

Questions

Instagram released the question sticker for stories in July 2018, giving businesses a fun way to connect with their audiences. One of the most basic but beneficial questions being your basic Q&A, choosing a topic broad or specific related to your brand. This tool is great for businesses to crowdsource ideas from the people that matter, collect testimonials and be able to respond appropriately and source what your audience would want to see more of.

*Image sourced from Later.

Other ideas on how to present questions on your story from a business perspective, check out this post by Later.

With so many ways to express your brands voice via Instagram stories, making use of all the features will never have your audience bored, will have your content appealing to the eye and continue to have your audience involved with your brand.

 

Highlights

Having the option to pin stories at the top of your page in a highlight album is a feature every business should take advantage of; it presents your page to look more professional and put together. Having the option to name your albums and assign it a cover photo that reflects the topic. There are helpful apps such as Phonto to help with creating the perfect cover photo. Watch this video that guides you through the steps on how to make appealing highlight covers.

 

Once you’ve set your highlights up you can add and delete content in the albums as you please. You can even choose to add past story posts from your archive. Businesses use highlights in many ways from showcasing products, customer testimonials, upcoming dates, FAQ, or promoting a marketing campaign. This feature is very versatile and can be used in countless ways.

 

Helpful Links

7 ways a business can use Instagram story question feature – https://later.com/blog/instagram-stories-question-sticker/

If you want to get creative and have your own branded gifs that can be used as stickers by yourself and others, check out this video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqWjCFKhVpg

Creative way to edit Instagram stories through Instagram –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVzh7szKiCM (PART ONE)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqMCDgfdkaA (PART TWO)

Check out the Instagram stats for your country here – https://napoleoncat.com/stats/

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