If you’re familiar with the world of social media, then you’re sure to know about Instagram Stories.
First launched in 2016, IG Stories have grown substantially in usage numbers ever since. Interestingly enough, the average number of feed posts published by influencers actually declined every year since stories were introduced on the platform.
So, why is that?
Well, if we’re talking business-wise, IG Stories are an essential engagement tool when it comes to communicating with your followers. By introducing features that are great for starting conversations, Instagram has improved ways of getting real-time feedback straight from your target audience.
Tips for Optimising your growth on IG using Stories:
Need more followers? Use tools like hashtags and location tags on your stories to gain more views – it’s a great organic way to increase your follower count!
You can add as many as 10 hashtags to each Instagram story, including 1 clickable hashtag sticker (but make sure they’re relevant to your content and target audience!).
Instagram stories are also a great way to optimise audience engagement. With tools like polls, questions, and quizzes, you’re sure to receive some form of feedback from your followers (I mean, that’s the goal, right?).
Some other notable characteristics/ features that stories have include:
- Photos and videos (within 15 seconds in length)
- Live video streaming
- Instagram Story Highlights (collections of stories available even after expiration, available on your profile)
- Stickers, gifs, polls, live chats, questions, emoji sliders, and other interactive functions
- (Endless!) options of AR filters
- Account mentions and location tags
And hey, if you’re a small business, you’ll find that IG stories cater to you as well. For those with online shops – shoppable product stickers are available, which means your followers can experience a simplified and easy way to shop your store, without having to search up your website manually.
A ‘swipe-up’ feature is also available to those with 10k+ followers. However, it is important to note that Instagram will soon be shifting this option to ‘link stickers’ at the end of this month. Link stickers will have a similar purpose as the ‘swipe up’ feature, meaning you can easily include website shortcuts without having to change your ‘link in bio’ every couple of days (trust us, we know the struggle…). But, hey – it’s all the more incentive to work on your engagement to meet that follower count!
If you have a budget available, it is also important to note that you can also utilise story advertisements for your brand or business – accessible via Facebook Ads Manager.
When it comes to IG stories, you’re able to choose the length of the campaign and frequency of ads on Facebook’s ad platform – and unlike your usual Instagram Story, an Instagram Story ad doesn’t disappear after 24-hours.
Story ads are a great way to get through to your intended market as Instagram targets your ads by reach, video views, traffic, conversions, app installs, and brand awareness.
What’d we tell you? Never overlook those IG engagement opportunities – there’s so much to gain from posting stories!
So, what are you waiting for? Start uploading!