It’s an absolute no brainer that you need Instagram to survive the competition. In fact,1 in 4 Millennials and Gen Z-ers look for Stories of the products and services they want to buy. The platform offers you a unique opportunity with 500 million daily visitors. One-third of the most-viewed Instagram Stories are from businesses and brands.
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Using these simple tips, tricks, and hacks mentioned further in the article, you can effectively bring more traffic and involve engagement via your stories. They will help you promote your brand and create a stable social capital to thrive on in the long run and won’t cause a quick burnout.
But let us first understand,
What is Instagram Stories, And Why Must One Use it?
Instagram has incorporated a Snapchat like story feature, which lets you post 15-second videos and pictures from your gallery or directly capture via the Instagram camera app. You can tag others, write in rich text fonts, use Geotags, and hashtags. It is similar to an Instagram post but much more concise, crisp, and clear.
People tend to browse through it quickly, and it doesn’t lose its visibility in the Instagram algorithm like your posts. 80% of the audience on Instagram at least follows one brand. It proves how important it is to always upgrade your image and presence on the visual social media platform. But the stories disappear in 24 hours, and that becomes useful when you have to create a hype or remind people of an ongoing or expiring offer.
It can also be saved in the highlight option on your profile. You can custom build categories for your stories and label them under one banner. They are more fun and more exciting than any other feature on Instagram, like IGTV or posts.
In the following post, you will discover the best strategic ways to drive traffic with Instagram stories:
12 Best Instagram Stories Drive Sales And Promote Your Brand:
1. Add Links to Your Stories
You have more than 10000 followers; it becomes effortless to get them on the landing page. You just have to add the link to the story with brilliant text and images to swipe up and view.
It’s alright even if you don’t have those many followers, you can tell your followers to go to your Instagram profile to tab on the clickable link present. You can directly drive the traffic to the particular post product or service you want to be talking about.
You can use apps like Later to create your custom swipe up gif even use the readymade options, which add animation and funk to your pale story.
2. Use Shoppable Instagram Story Stickers
Have you seen those product stickers when you tap on some Instagram posts? They inform you about the price of the product and can now be used in your Instagram stories. You need to be located in one of the 46 countries the feature is available in along with having an Instagram business account, and most importantly, your products must comply with Instagram’s merchant agreement and commerce policies. They add to the aesthetic and style of your Instagram story’s layout and come in two options- transparent and multi-colored icons.
3. Create an Instagram Story Ad
With over 500 million people using Instagram Stories every day, it is no surprise that many brands have jumped the bandwagon to gain traffic via Instagram story ads. Engagement rates are already high as Instagram reveals that one in five stories gets a direct message from viewers.
Ad spends have increased by more than 50% per year. Include engaging text and correct links for the products to ensure that people swipe up. You can use 15-second video ads, 5-second images ads, or a 45-second carousel ad for three back to back stories as per your convenience. Gap ran carousel video ads in Instagram Stories to create more buzz, boost brand awareness and reach new customers for the Logo Remix collection, resulting in a 17-point lift in ad recall and 73% higher click-through rate.
4. Visualize And Schedule Your Instagram Stories
With the help of Instagram analytics or other apps like Iconosquare and later-Instagram’s official partners, you can figure the best time to post and know the demographics of your viewers. This can help save time in the workday, remembering the essential days and visualizing your storyline well in advance.
You can also use the same apps to create a storyline with captions and URL links, which will be sent to your phone as reminders if in case you want to make any last-minute changes or additions.
5. Exchange a Takeover With an Influencer or Brand
Invite the industry’s top influencers or celebrities to collaborate with you for a day over your Instagram Stories. It can help both parties to expand their following base and build an association. For a brand, the influencer is critical in bringing in credibility and in generating more revenue. The influencer can become more discoverable and gain followers with his/her personality to its profile. But you must decide and stick to the guideline and terms of the agreement to avoid any mismatch or backlash.
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6. Introduce The New Line or Campaign
You can generate a lot of buzz by creating hype via Instagram stories by creating count-downs, polls, quizzes, challenges, and question booths regarding the new product, announcement, or sale. People spend more time browsing through stories than their Instagram feed because they can be skipped, if not compelling. BY using the mentioned features, you increase engagement, which is of much better quality and can be viewed together. You can include these options so that the feedback and responses are more easily gained as the users are served with the question.
7. Create Educational Stories
Help your followers and potential customers understand specific, new, and unique features with your Instagram story’s help. You can choose to give a detailed explanation of the changes in an IGTV video and share it in your stories. You can share how to do videos, Do it yourself, and many other formats that help the customers understand the importance and relevance of your brand and product in today’s market.
If the users understand the product and its features, they can turn them into buyers from random online window-shoppers. Make sure that you don’t give out an essay level detailed explanation but a brief infographic yet informative introduction. You can also collaborate with influencers to create the step by step guide, which includes your product primarily.
For instance, National Geographic educates and initiates conservation efforts that are being done by incredible people and organizations worldwide. Their Swipe Up call to action drives users to a National Geographic landing page where visitors can pledge to reduce plastic usage and share their pledge on social media.
8. Introduce Behind The Scene Videos For an Intimate Connect
When you take the customer and connect them with the backstage members and activities, it helps you better form a deeper bond with them. When they see the efforts but by their favorite brand or influencer to deliver the results, they feel part of the process and go on to the extent of vouching for your authenticity to others. It can also be used to create hype around the new project as it acts as a teaser to the final delivery. You can save or compile these videos in your highlights for the new audience to view later.
Minimalist Baker’s owner Dana Shultz Stories are a virtual treat to watch and learn from. The stories always include the full recipe and ingredient list as a Swipe Up which leads you to the website’s blog. They are later saved in Highlights on their Instagram page.
9. Use Lifestyle References to Give Context
Images with pictures earn 38% more engagement, so make sure that you become a model or hire professionals for the photoshoot. Incorporate them with apt meaning and think outside the confines of a studio. Using a real-life, live, and relatable location for the background helps the customers see the utility of the product. Use warm tones and avoid dark tones as much as possible. Get out of the studio and ask the influencers to do the same.
Harper Bazaar, Vogue, Channel, Vanity Fair, and other major lifestyle and fashion brands mostly use this tactic while shooting for a cover or documenting a workday example for their followers
10. Repost User-generated Content
When the followers mention or tag you in stories and posts, respectively, it becomes useful if you repost your stories. Some of the advantages are :
- It gathers testimonials for your future followers to go through. Make sure that you save them in a dedicated story highlight on your Instagram page.
- You can run campaigns and giveaways more easily as stories help you create a database of your customers.
- If you post someone’s story or post on your story, they gain followers and engagements, which prompts them to tag you more often.
- It is a useful tool for indirect marketing of your brand or product.
11. Republish Your Instagram Posts on Your Stories
Always make sure that you post about your new post on Instagram stories as Instagram’s updated algorithm might decrease its visibility. You can create anticipation and excitement by using GIFs and stickers. You can also write a fun fact, back story, or note while posting it on your account. In this way, you can double-check and ensure your new post’s reach without purchasing third party and unauthentic engagements. People tend to look at it if the content looks promising, as they just have to tap on the post to view it.
12. Don’t Forget The Hashtags
Your hashtag game must be on point and sharp. Hashtags are a tool to make you more discoverable in your industry and competitors. When people look for references and ideas, they search for specific hashtags. If you have a top post, they are instantly drawn. Use broad and niche-specific hashtags to appear on the compiled list for the day’s stories. You can use hashtag generating and search applications like RiteTag, Iconosquare, and All-hashtag to get customized and trending hashtags that fit your story’s context.
13. Add Geo-location
This public sharing of content with the geo-tagging locations benefits the brand by engaging with users. Brands with brick and mortar locations can see all the various content tagged to their site and help the indirect promotion of their brand. You can appear in the top stories of a place to make you discoverable to local and international customers. It can also help you find and sign new influencers and brands for future collaborations.
To wrap it up in a few sentences:
- Instagram stories as a platform provide you with an average of 700 million users monthly, and the numbers are staying stagnant or decreasing no time sooner in the future.
- Make sure you capitalize and gain maximum utility from this feature to grow your sales and brand awareness. It is the most interactive and penetrating way through creative and professional pictures, crisp one-liners, and a sturdy marketing strategy in place.
- Use necessary tools, analytics to plan and schedule your stories. Never miss an opportunity of reaching out more to your target audiences.
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