Instagram continues to add features that make brand promotion quite easy to achieve. It’s one of the reasons why it’s on the list of top social platforms for increasing brand awareness. Instagram stories have definitely attracted many as the numbers continue to rise and exceed 1 billion active users worldwide. Not only that this ephemeral content is efficient at increasing brand awareness, but it also keeps Instagrammers in touch with their favorite brand. As fear of missing out on intriguing details plays a big role in the success of this feature, it’s important to understand how to use Instagram stories properly in order to maximize its effectiveness. But these brief video newsflashes seem like a waste of time, right? After all, once a story is posted it’s visible only 24 hours. Although some may see it that way, many resources show how effective they actually are for business.
If you still aren’t convinced that Instagram stories can do wonders for the development of your business, here’s proof in numbers:
-Around 30 % of total stories are those of brands and businesses
-More than 500 million Instagrammers use stories every day
-Every 5th organic story posted by business results in a direct message
-Since the Introduction of stories, Instagram worth grew to 100 billion dollars
So now that you know you should use this tool to increase your reach, promote and generally make your brand even more successful, you should inquire about how to use them properly. We got it all here, no need to look elsewhere.
Here are seven tips on how to make Instagram stories more effective for your business development strategy.
Creating Genuine Content
It goes without saying that Instagrammers want to see genuine, quality photos and videos. The whole idea behind this social platform revolves around sharing stunning, high-quality photo material and exposing it to criticism. This way the community itself controls the quality of posts thanks to Instagrammers zero-tolerance policy on posts that are less than perfect. So regarding rules on this particular social media photo quality is definitely a must.
Creating intriguing content doesn’t only imply that photo and video material should be of high-quality. You should also make sure that you create the right setting, pay attention to lighting, and create a scene that portrays a story that you want to present to your viewers.
To really draw engagement and work on increasing your reach try to provide something new to your audience. Take them behind the scenes and show them some inside information. This will make them feel appreciated and they won’t think that checking your post was a waste of time. And because Instagram stories last only 24 hours, they won’t risk to miss out on this type of exclusive content.
Going Live
Another technique you should definitely implement in your marketing strategy is going live on Instagram. Marketing experts confirm that 80 % of users prefer to learn something new about their favorite brand through live posts than to read about it on the official page, blog or any other place.
Wondering what to show on your live post? If you run out of ideas for your live post concept and your creativity starts to fade, you shouldn’t hesitate to see how major brands do it. In other words, to be the best you must learn from the best. Because their ideas guarantee success as they’ve shown time and time again. For example, covering the event that you made with a live post is another great way to draw engagement. Be sure to make it look interesting and by adding a note of mystery to keep them coming back for more content. Revealing everything at once delivers the full package of information, but if you could stretch to a couple of days, your live coverage of the 3-day event will keep your audience on their toes. The fear of missing out on exclusive content does wonder for your reach. Introducing important members of your team like a product manager or brand designer gives your audience a one-time opportunity to find out details about their favorite brand from another perspective.
Optimizing your Posts
This goes without saying, hashtags are a must for several reasons. Not only that they have become the trademark of Instagram, but they also allow you to boost you trafic and reach the audience that you didn’t necessarily target. A type of audience that adds to the conversion rate is always a welcome audience. And we all know that sometimes they come from nowhere.
However, there are several ways to use hashtags on Instagram stories. You can use text, sticker or location tag to add hashtags to your stories. The important thing here to remember is not to overcrowd your post with a combination of hashtag types. This will decrease the quality of your post no matter how well placed they are.
The good news is that by picking one, like location tag, for example, you’ll increase the chances of expanding your audience and possibly conversion rate without breaking a sweat. By adding a relevant hashtag to your niche you’ll allow your story to pop out to those that typed that particular hashtag.
Name tags are also quite useful when trying to boost engagement on your posts. By giving them the option to add a name to a tag, your audience will come to understand that you’re finding new and creative ways to keep them interested in your product and business. This further implies that you care about their experience and that you know how to deliver it to your audience. It portrays you as a serious business that knows what the audience wants.
Going for Continuity and Variety of Content
Creating a perfect post that attracts the audience, draws engagement, and increases conversion rates takes time. You’ll need to find your own approach and style of recording, storytelling, etc. Every audience is different so you’ll want to make your content as appealing as possible for them. For example, instead of posting a story that reveals all about the current features of your product try finding various ways to present a portion on qualities, then stretch those on two, three or more posts.
Variety of content is important as your audience will get tired of seeing the same thing every other day. They’ll lose interest because they haven’t seen anything new. So to avoid this try to be creative with your posts without losing the consistency of posting. Try thinking outside of the box and take a fresh approach to building a story about your product. Think about what your audience wants to see and when they want to see it.
Quality Customer Support Matters
No matter how well you treat your audience through social platform posts and engagement, nothing tells a better customer care story than the quality of this service. From addressing general problems or frequently asked questions to resolving specific issues on topics that concert a few cases, you should always aim for in-depth, clear responses.
Every Customer Counts
Customer’s satisfaction should be your top priority, so be prepared to make compromises even if it means going against your standard policy. By gaining the trust of only a few customers in the beginning, you’ll contribute immensely to the overall progress of your business. You’ll want your audience to trust your services, and what better way to do so than to prove it with actions and promotional Instagram stories of your services.
Email Outreach
Be prepared to make that extra step and upgrade your outreach strategy by changing your approach, and letting them know exactly what they can expect from your services.
In just a couple of sequences, you can show how you address your audience and what type of services they might expect in general. This includes promotional services and offers that show you’ll be there to resolve every problem your customers may experience.
Reliable Operators
Training your staff to answer the most complex question regarding your brand, services that you provide as well as features might take some time. But when you finally have a team of operators that are ready to address any problem your customers may experience, you’ll have your casting staff for a promotional video. Show how competent and efficient they are at resolving, but most importantly be sure that the story portrays how easy it is to get answers.
Earning the Trust of Your Audience
Your brand’s reputation is an important thing for your business. You’ll want to earn the trust of your audience and although this is easier said than done, it’s entirely possible and doesn’t take much to do it. All you need to do is cover a couple of steps and you’ll have their trust in no time. Here’s how to do it.
Sharing Testimonials
One of the best ways for your audience to get the insights of the features or services and product is with testimonials. Not only that they provide firsthand information but they also allow you to present the satisfaction of customers.
Your audience will be able to relate to those reviews as users explain with their own words what they liked, didn’t like and what they want to know about your products. Around 70 percent of product-related reviews result in generating sales. Because you’re willing to share random user’s experience about your product you’re showing that you don’t have anything to hide.
Do not Avoid UGC and Influencers
User-generated content is also a great way to present your products and services from a perspective that your audience can relate to. It’s a mean of reaching out without paying for advertising companies for their services.
More importantly by filtering and sharing quality user-generated content, you’ll show that it doesn’t take much to present your product and services in the right light. And that speaks about the quality of your brand. More than 80 % of Millennials confirm that UGC has at least some effect on their purchasing decision and that it also shows the raw quality of a brand.
Opinion Leaders
Influencers and their posts can be a powerful tool for boosting your engagement and reach of your posts. Implementing this type of marketing strategy to your own is becoming increasingly popular. Remember that they have an audience of their own. An audience that might be out of reach for you without contacting them. Many famous brands collaborate with bloggers and opinion leaders on a regular basis. So how does it work?
Once they post content with your product, the same post shows on your page and the only thing you need to do is add a name tag to prove the influencer’s identity. And once their audience spots a post with your name on it, they’ll either follow you or engage with the post. And let’s not forget that these are all potential customers. So the more the merrier.
Choosing the right influencer might prove a bit more difficult than starting a collaboration. The best way to spot the right opinion leader is not via their posts but by evaluating their persona and determining whether they can communicate with your targeted audience.
To Conclude
Instagram stories are definitely a great marketing tool for developing your business. The only thing is that you can’t use them until you learn their full potential and learn how to properly use them. All of the above tips will come in more than handy when trying to expand your reach, gain traffic, increase conversion rate and making a name for yourself on this amazing social platform. You won’t be the only business trying to make it out there so it’s important to think things through and develop a solid strategy that works and is fail-proof.
