Are you using Instagram Stories in your social media marketing?
By now you’ve probably noticed the not-so-new feature at the top of your Instagram feed with the latest app update that’s generating quite a buzz on this social platform called Instagram Stories. Undeniably similar to Snapchat Stories, this bold move is pushing users to share even more visual content to its already 95 million daily image uploads. With this added feature comes incredible opportunities for marketers to leverage this social network to promote their content, boost follower engagement, and create transparent experiences that further humanizes their brand.
Before sharing ways on how you can use Instagram Stories in your social media marketing, we’ll explore exactly what Instagram Stories are and its intended purpose.
What Are Instagram Stories?
Instagram Stories allows users to post multiple streams of photos and videos in a slideshow format to create their unique story for that day. Like Snapchat, the content is ephemeral so content posted in Stories will disappear after 24 hours. Content posted via Stories does not show on your profile grid or Instagram feed. The advantage is the ability to post visual continuously without overwhelming your followers feed or your business page.
Instagram users are able to see various stories from accounts they follow located in a bar at the top of their home page feed. When there’s something new to see, the account profile photo will display a colorful ring around it. One of the slight differences between Stories and Snapchat is that new stories in the home feed are sorted by who you interact with most, not according to the time stories have been updated.
The beauty about Instagram Stories is you’ll be able to see exactly who has watched each part of your story, allowing you to gauge who is engaging most with your content. Also, Stories bring true authenticity to your content because it’s in the moment, right-now content with no edits…completely contrary to your high-quality, polished Instagram posts.
Finally, you can add flavor to your Stories content using text and drawing tools to show more of your brands personality.
4 Ways You Can Leverage Instagram Stories In Your Social Media Marketing
Instagram Stories creates more opportunities to bolster relationships with your followers, humanize your brand, and get fans involved in your brands story. You see, people crave transparency on social media…Instagram Stories is the perfect outlet to showcasing more of your brands personality, building that know, like and trust factor. It has huge potential to generating more exposure to your sports brand.
Here are a few suggestions to leveraging Instagram Stories in your social media strategy:
#1 Hold Contests
One of the best ways to get fans involved in your brand is through Instagram contests. Get them active in your stories by encouraging them to send messages as a contest where their answers could win them a prize. Make it a regular event so they’re returning on a consistent basis and taking interest in your stories.
#2 Take Your Followers Backstage
Use Stories to expand on a recent post shared on your feed by giving followers behind-the-scenes access to your event. Sharing a continuous stream of visual content that goes more in-depth can add another layer to your content and helps bring it to life, giving your followers more personalized experiences with your brand.
#3 Instagram Stories takeovers
Takeovers is a huge practice on Snapchat and this same concept of giving influencers in your niche access to your account can be applied to Instagram Stories. Although there isn’t a way to directly send someone a story (at least not yet anyway), you’ll gain a better idea of who is interacting with your content to further engage with them.
#4 Create Awareness About Upcoming Events
Instagram Stories definitely can be used as an additional outlet to creating campaigns that builds awareness about an upcoming event or new product launch. Each day offers new chances to generate content that promotes your next big thing with Stories. You will never overwhelm your followers feed and it gives your followers something to look forward to.
Conclusion
Instagram Stories offers an amazing opportunity to further engage with your followers, increase your content visibility, and promote your brand. Implement one or a couple of these tips into your social media marketing strategy, see what works best, and then focus on the tactic that generates the most responsiveness from your audience. Much success!
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