Instagram Stories

What's The Story?

 

What is it?

 

Stories is a feature within social media channel Instagram. Stories allow you to post photos, videos and record Live stories which disappear after 24 hours. Stories can be enhanced with filters, stickers, Gifs and much more and is a fun and easy way to directly engage your audience.

 

How it can work for you?

 

Instagram Stories can be used to:

• Highlight your company’s personality using GIFs, Stickers & Music. Be as interactive as possible.
• Collect market research using the interactive Polls sticker, Questions, Emotion sticker & Quiz
• Product or Company news, giveaway, sneak peeks, product launches, Questions & answer sessions, Interviews, announcements with the Countdown sticker
• Live Stories are great to reveal up to minute news, product demonstrations or events.
• Make your stories shoppable with Product Shop Links.
• When you reach 10K followers, Instagram automatically gives you access to add a website links to your stories which you can use to link to products or your email sign up page.
• Instagram stories can help you to get local exposure thanks to Location Stickers. Using Location Stickers are a great way to get local exposure particularly if you want to attract local custom or support.
• Directing traffic back to your website, blog or a post on your main page
• Using the arrow button on your main page to repost to your stories. This is an excellent way to show your audience that you have a post on the main grid. You can use this as a way to share other user content which is of interest to your audience.
• Hashtags are a great way to help you increase your visability, even in Stories. By including a hashtag using the hast tag sticker, you are giving your post the potential of reaching a new audience. Remember to use a hashtag which is relevant & popular to the post as you are more likely to get an engaged audience.
• Don’t forget to Geotag your stories so you can reach local audiences.

 

 

Stories should not be about selling!

Stories are not just a sales channel. They should be used to humanize the brand. Make your followers realise there is a real person behind the squares. You could talk about your story or take your followers on a journey during your day to day life. Use stories to build brand loyalty and highlight your personality. One of my favourite brands who create the most compelling stories is Space Masks. Go and check out Harriet’s Stories, they are genius.

 

Don’t forget to use stories to repost customers posts or anything that relates to your brand. It can be a quote, advice, a news article, a influencers post, interviews, podcasts? It could be anything just as long as its relevant to your brand or product. Remember if you share a post, remember to tag the person who originally created the post and always ask permission if they feature someone else’s children.

 

Our favourite apps for Stories

 

• Unum
• Adobe Lightroom
• Unfold
• Canva

 

Exercise

Post three stories per day for the next week. Make your posts more about the person behind the brand. Post photos, videos and don’t forget to use the points above. If you are feeling brave, speak into the camera and remember the story will disappear within 24 hours. Tag us and we will repost.

 

by Donna Jackson 

 

 

Recent articles