Instagram stories are some of the most misunderstood tools on social media these days. This article will clear up how a business can use Instagram stories to improve the loyalty of their following by applying the strategies below.
Marketing should always be routed in the basics, and the best way to think about Instagram stories is to view them like a mini-ad for not just selling products, but every piece of content you’re business puts out. They are a great way to build a community and provide a much easier way to get your name out there without spending hours and hours making the perfect post.
Understanding how micro-content helps your business is the first step towards social media success. Instagram stories is a great place to start, so read this article and apply these tactics.
Sell a Product
Do you know what the best part of Instagram stories is? It’s the ability to ask your audience in a quick and creative ya if they would like to buy a product.
Instagram stories great for influence marketers, affiliate marketers, and eCommerce stores, but that’s not all. With a little bit of creativity and “warming up” your Instagram story can become a walking, talking billboard for anything you want to sell.
They key to selling with Instagram stories is sell much less than you teach, share, and show. You don’t want to sell all the time. You need to space out your sales pitches and remember what got you your following in the first place. Good old fashioned content and if you’re struggling to get an audience check out this article for more information.
Highlight Your Day
Think of Instagram stories like a daily diary that is public to drive engagement. They are the perfect tool to document the bits and pieces of each day and this is great because you are letting your followers know who you are which builds the relationship.
Instagram stories are the perfect way to establish a social media relationship if you have lots of people followings you. If you don’t have lots of people following you it might be a better idea to reach out to people individually instead until you’ve reached critical mass.
Highlighting your day is easy with Instagram stories if you document anything interesting that happens at work or in your personal life. Even if you’re B2B, having one or two people dedicated to being the face of a company on Instagram is the key to making a impact.
Personalization always wins over professionalism, because businesses are full of people and are full of emotions. Your Instagram stories should reflect that. The more emotion you put into your stories the better your sales will do.
Document a Convention
Conventions are the perfect place for Instagram stories, because they are great places to capture micro-content when you’re walking around. Conventions are natural places to explore new ideas and lots of content can come out from them.
The next time you’re at a convention pull out your phone and start taking picture and making videos. If you talk to the vendors see if you can do a mild interview with them if it pertains to your business. You can easily tag them in the story and help them out too. It’s an easy way to get them to say yes.
If you have followers at the convention, you can use your stories to invite them over to your booth if you have one. When they come over make sure you follow them back to see what they are doing from time to time. If they have a following, this might be a good opportunity to do a shout-for-shout on Instagram stories to help build each other’s followings.
The main key here is that conventions are social occasions, and any opportunity for you to be more social on Instagram stories is a great thing for your brand.
Boost a Live-Stream
Live-streaming and IGTV is very important for brands that have a lot to say, and a great way to get the word out is to put the details of live-stream in your Instagram stories. If you’re trying to build a brand, live-streaming is a great way to build a relationship, but if no one knows you’re doing it, you’ll waste your time.
Of course you can pay to boost your live-streams, but they best way is to let your followers know that you’re live-streaming at a specific time in the near future. You should make your live-streams at predictable times, so people can anticipate when you do them.
However, new followers want to consume your content as fast as possible and a live-stream is a great way to do it. Post the details of your live-streams to hype them up. Tell people the date, time, and details of the subject-matter.
Promote an Event
Instagram stories are great for promoting events and selling tickets to the event. You can easily set up little reminders of events and provide links to purchase tickets every day if you want (that’s not recommended).
Events need to be promoted in order for them to be successful. What is the right amount of promotion for your business? Is it everyday?
Many marketers have theories on what is the right amount of time to promote and promote events. It all depends on the audience you create.
Too many times people forget that their audience is their creation. If you’re audience is not cool with you emailing them every day or giving them daily updates on an Instagram story, you need to create different audience. You also might need to step your game up and make better content, but nevertheless you should strive to be on the mind of your followers at all times if possible.
Send Traffic to Your Website
This is a given, but so many Instagram story marketers forget that Instagram stories are fantastic tools to increase traffic to a blog or eCommerce website. Just use it as a reminder to let them know when new content is available, just like promoting a live-stream or event.
The more you use Instagram stories the easier it will be to create your own ideas about how to build a crowd around your brands. It takes more than just a couple of tries to get it right, but once you find your sweet spot you’ll find out that you have tons of ideas that work.
Blogs, whitepapers, case studies, and videos are great things to let people know about when you post to Instagram stories. Just make sure you have a compelling images and feel free to use the graphics that are available on the app to spruce it up.
Promote a Friend’s Profile with Instagram Stories
Being social and helping your friends is really easy on Instagram stories. Just take a picture and tag them in the picture. Post it to your Instagram stories and watch your friends account grow. You can even do this for shoutouts. Many Instagrammers make large sums of money with this strategy.
Bikini models and influence marketers are known for this tactic and they do very well. Use the convention tactic to help each other out. If you have similar followings, a similar number of followers, or just like their style and want to help them be generous with your Instagram stories. Collaborations usually do very well in most industries.
Share Ideas to Help Customers Grow a Business
Sharing micro-content to your followers, who should be customers, is a great way to build trust before they enter a sales cycle. Without trusting your brand they will rarely buy anything, but by sharing tidbits of information and linking those morsels to your website, blog, or wherever you keep your more thorough content you can make sure they feel the love.
Most marketers do not promote their content nearly enough to get the traffic they deserve. They usually do one more than the other and wonder why they aren’t getting the numbers they want.
The key to any successful content marketing strategy is to create enough content that you’re customers want more and promoting it enough that you continuously are getting new viewers. Instagram stories is a great place to do that, because micro-content is easy disregard and is not annoying at all. Simply put, it’s hard to screw up.
Massive Action
The last step in this puzzle is to take massive action with your Instagram stories. If you focus too much on anything it should be your stories. It takes posting at least 5 times a day to grow a following on Instagram, but stories change the game entirely.
Since five posts per day gets you followers, Instagram stories help you keep your followers. It’s like a daily check in, and if you embrace the documenting is creating mentality you’ll be very successful with your stories.
For more strategies on Instagram marketing and knowing exactly what you should focus on, check out this article and get in the know. The Most Advanced Instagram Marketing Guide You’ll Ever See.
