When Instagram Stories first rolled out in August 2016, many IG users were trying to figure out the best way to use them. As we saw more brands intentionally using Instagram the last few years, we quickly learned that IG stories are a great way to connect with your audience.
Stories are something that should be posted everyday for your brand, which is overwhelming, especially when you want to be creative and do different things to keep your audience glued and coming back for more.
Stories are where your warm and hot audience lives! It’s a great place to not only showcase your brand, but also build trust, position yourself as an expert, and increase sales.
If you can, mix face to cam stories and trainings with graphics you have already created. Our best advice is to do this in advance by batching your content. That way, you’ll be prepared and don’t have to scurry around everyday to get content up for your brand!
We have put together a handful of story ideas to keep you organized and ahead of the game!
Give a BTS Look
Show behind the scenes of your work space, a project you’re working on, how you create your product or service, or how you plan your day! People are nosey and want to see and get to know the person or people behind the brand. This humanizes your brand and also connects with your audience on a different level.
Do a Mini Training
This can apply to both product and service based businesses. If you have a service based business, share a mini training on how to do something. Make it quick and applicable. While you may be worried that if you share mini trainings or how to’s, your audience won’t hire them because they’ll just do it themselves. This may be true in the short-term, but mini-trainings position you as an expert and most of the time, people want to know that you know what you’re doing. If you have a product based business, share how to use your product or how it will solve people’s problems.
Share Reviews/Success Stories
What better way to show off your expertise than to share your results or success stories from your clients/customers?! Share results or ways your products or services have helped people. Remember, businesses solve peoples problems, so share case studies with your audience! Your audience wants to know you have proven success in your methods or the quality of your products.
Ways to Work With You or Purchase Your Products
People don’t know what they can’t have. Share ways your audience can work with you or how they can purchase your products. If you aren’t driving sales and making money, you don’t really have a business. Driving sales through stories is a great way to increase revenue. Remember, it’s usually a warm or hot audience watching your stories!
Conduct Market Research
Yes, that’s right. You can conduct market research on stories. By asking your audience what they want to see for content, what they want to learn, or even what type of product or service they would like to see from you next. Your stories is a great place to gather information and serve your audience the best way you can!
Quotes/Wallpapers/Mood-boards
Anyone else a sucker for quotes or cute wallpaper? Create on brand quotes or wallpapers to share with your audience. Or even put together a monthly brand aesthetic wallpaper and encourage your audience to do the same and share it to their own stories!
Fun Quizzes
Whether you’re doing a this-or-that, fill in the blanks, or adding poll stickers to your stories, adding fun quizzes to stories is a great way to engage your audience. There’s a lot going on online and in the world, sometimes all people need is something fun to interact with.
So, this is your reminder that Instagram isn’t about you, it’s about your audience and what they want. At the end of the day, your audience is who will be buying from you or referring you to people they know.
Looking for more tips? Head over to our Instagram or check out our other blogs!