Not sure how to use Instagram Stories? Want to increase engagement when posting stories? If you want to become an Instagram Stories guru, you’ve come to the right place! Instagram Stories have been around for years, but not many brands know how to use them effectively.
This feature is a great way to tell your business’ story while offering fun and unique ways to interact with your followers. Here are some of the best tips and tricks so that you can get the most out of Instagram Stories.
IMAGE: PEXELS
Ensure Branding Remains Consistent
Just as you focus on keeping your branding consistent throughout your Instagram profile, you need to do the same when creating stories. Think about the images you post on Instagram, your website, and other online profiles. Do you use a specific color palette or a certain overlay? Be sure to carry this look and feel into your stories. Consistency makes it much easier to increase brand visibility and recognition.
Keep An Eye On The Clock
Stories don’t give you an endless amount of time. In fact, you only get 15 seconds to deliver a message. Since it can be hard to fit all of your content into such a short video, you may find it more effective to record longer clips and then create snippets.
You can then use editing software to put the snippets together so that they flow nicely. By finding ways to get the message to users, you can more easily get Instagram followers that are interested in the content you create.
Know When To Post
Not only do you have to worry about the length of your story, but you also have to analyze when your content gets the most views. If your followers are most active on Instagram during a specific timeframe, you’ll want to publish stories during that time. This way, you can maximize the number of followers that will view and interact with the story. Posting at the wrong time can cause your content to get lost in the sea of thousands of other stories.
Tag A User
When you post a story that relates to a user or a business, mention them! Instagram allows you to mention up to 10 users in a photo. By mentioning someone in a story, their username will appear with an underline, which allows viewers to tap it and then view their profile. Mentioning someone sends a notification to that user. A DM will also be sent that provides a preview of the story.
Use Locations And Hashtags
Just as you add hashtags to posts, you want to do the same when creating stories. This way, users can more easily find your content. Hashtags are especially useful in getting more users to follow your profile. Unsure of which hashtags to use in your stories? You can find quality hashtags by:
- Searching Instagram
- Looking at what’s trending in the industry
- Seeing what influencers are hashtagging
- Researching what competitors are using
Locations are also beneficial in that if someone conducts a location search, your story will appear on the Instagram search page.
Use The Highlight Feature
Traditionally, Instagram Stories are viewable for 24 hours, but you can use the highlight feature to make it so that a story stays on your profile for much longer. This is useful if you’re using a story to share a promotion or as a way to release a new product. While you don’t want to highlight too many stories at once, this is a cool way to ensure that more viewers see the content that you determine to be worth watching.
Use Animation And Music
Want to spruce up your Instagram Stories? If so, add animation and music to make your videos stand out. There are all sorts of free tools that you can use to add animation, music, or both to a story. Animation and music are a great way to take a story from good to great. Both features can add just the right amount of fun to your content.
Add A Link To Your Story
Make your story more than just a video or collage of photos by adding a link. Most businesses add a “Swipe Up” comment so that viewers can access the linked content. In order to add a link to a story, you must have at least 10,000 followers. Adding a link is a great way to drive traffic to your website. You can also use it to market a new product or to share business or industry news.
Conclusion
Instagram Stories are a great way to engage with your followers. If you want to create unique content that is sure to get the views you want, a story is precisely the content you need. Keep these tips and tricks in mind to optimize your content on the social network.
If you are interested in even more social media-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels, then we have a lot to choose from.
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