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How to Use Instagram Stories in 2021

Looking for an Instagram story tutorial – 2021 edition?

Here’s a shameless tutorial on how to use Instagram Stories in 2021, for those of you who want to pull the plunge into Instagram stories in 2021.

It’s not too late to start! 

How To Market On Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories is a very popular feature that enables Instagram users to post various short videos and photos that disappear after 24 hours. You might be wondering why would you want to spend a lot of time crafting content that will disappear in 24 hours? It makes no sense, right?

It’s important to understand what an Instagram Story is and what this feature is all about.

Stories content doesn’t appear in your feed and isn’t visible in your profile. This is what makes Instagram Stories unique. You can add Stories to your profile as highlights which don’t vanish after 24 hours.

A Social Media Trend For 2021

Instagram stories are the backbone of influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is growing even more in 2021.

Influencer marketing is on track to become a $15 billion dollar industry by 2022 and it shows no sign of slowing down.

63% of marketers intend to increase their influencer marketing budget in the next year. Source: Later.com.

What’s The Hype About Stories?

The marketing strategy is called ephemeral content.

Ephemeral content is rich media that is only accessible temporarily (usually 24 hours) before it disappears forever. It can take many forms, including photos, live-stream videos, product demos, narrative stories, and more.

Ephemeral content can currently be published on three primary platforms: Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram.

When you post an Instagram Story, your profile image will feature a vibrant ring around it to inform other Instagram users letting them know that there’s new content that will disappear in 24 hours.

Why should You Use Instagram Stories to Promote Your Brand?

You get a superior user experience when you use Instagram Stories. There are numerous reasons why you ought to opt for Instagram Stories if you are a brand.  

✔️The most important and significant one is that in contrast to Snapchat, the number of individuals you are likely to reach out to on Instagram is considerably higher. Nearly 1 billion accounts use Stories format daily.

✔️Content that is shared via stories generates more engagement than the regular content.

✔️ 1 in 4 Millennials and Gen Z-ers look for Stories of the products and services they want to buy.

✔️ 15%–25% of people swipe up on a link in branded Stories.

✔️ One-third of the most-viewed Instagram Stories are from businesses.

✔️ 36% of businesses use Instagram Stories for product promotion.

✔️ 59% of brands link Instagram Stories to a shoppable page.

✔️Instagram Stories accounts for 34% of Instagram’s sponsored content.

✔️15%–25% of people swipe up on a link in branded Stories.

✔️One-third of the most-viewed Instagram Stories are from businesses.

✔️36% of businesses use Instagram Stories for product promotion.

✔️59% of brands link Instagram Stories to a shoppable page.

Furthermore, Instagram Stories provides a great platform to come up with creative content. This helps you to inch closer to your goal (have someone download a particular song, read some blog post, etc.).

Instagram stories will help you humanize your brand, which will result in conversions.

There is no end to the number of ways you can get creative on this amazing platform. Instagram Stories is very much like a small television channel where you can broaden your horizons and come up with innovative and unique concepts.

How to Share Promotions To Your Instagram Story

Keep in mind that stories have a different format than a regular Instagram post. Stories are great to share your promotions and reach your audience in a personalized and creative way.

✔️ In 2021, Instagram stories that have user-generated content are becoming a trend. A great example of user-generated content is a video testimonial. Your users will feel more connected with your product or services if they feel like they can relate to the stories that you share.

✔️Use branded templates to increase brand loyalty. Canva.com is a great resource to craft unique stories, basically for free.

✔️ Add polls to initiate conversations with your audience. This is a very unique feature. When you add a poll to your Instagram story, you will be able to see who is participating from your poll and have conversations with them.

✔️ Get more engagement by adding stickers to your stories. Stickers are powerful (kind of silly) features that grab the attention of your users. Instagram has added new features this year, so make sure you

We saw lots of enhancements to Instagram Stories in 2019, such as:

  1. Adding music to stories
  2. Layout feature to add multiple pictures at once in different frames
  3. Superzoom
  4. Hands-free
  5. Create
  6. Normal- with stickers, filters, artificial makeup, backgrounds, and the famous halo!

Adding Instagram Effects is fun, plus gives your brand a human taste. If all of this is new, no worries, you can learn more about these features here. Also, you can always delete a story is for some reason you feel like you didn’t do it right.

Image result for instagram stories music

Once you have uploaded your story, you can click on the 3 dots to the bottom right and activate the menu so you can save it, share as a post, view your story link, copy it, promote, or tag a partner.

Pro tip: copy the link of your Instagram Story and include it on your email campaign to let your audience know that something special was posted via stories and will disappear in 24 hours. This adds urgency!

Checking the Views of Your Instagram Story

Would you like to know if people have seen the Instagram story that you just posted? This is how you can find out:

1.   On the top left section of the Home screen, tap your story to bring it up.

2.   You can see the count of how many individuals have seen the story at the bottom left area of every Instagram Story post. 

3.   If you would like to see a list of people who have seen every single post in your Instagram Story, all you need to do is swipe up.

Bear in mind that you will only be able to check the count of how many users have viewed every post in your Story for 24 hours. You can, however, see the viewer count for more than 24 hours if you save a particular post to your Instagram Story highlights.  

If you have added some features like polls, for example, you will be able to see actions taken from your stories, including the engagement from polls.

If you have added hashtags, then you will notice that #’s also will have views.

Related image

If you would hide the contents of a Story from a certain person, press the three dots adjacent to that person’s user name and then press “Hide story from [name of the user].”

This action will conceal any future Instagram Story posts from that particular user. However, they will still be able to view your profile and see the regular posts that you put up.

How to Save Your Instagram Stories Permanently

You can easily download any of your Instagram Stories to your phone if you find yourself too close and attached to a particular Story and do not wish for it to vanish forever. What you need to do is open your Instagram story and press on the three dots that are present at the bottom right part of the video or photo. Next, press “Save Photo.”

You can save your Instagram Stories on your camera roll as well.  To do this, you need to head over to your profile screen, press the menu, and then select “Story Settings.” Turn the option on which says, “Always Save Videos and Photos.” This option will be present under the camera heading. 

Each time you create an Instagram Story, the images and videos will save automatically to the camera gallery on your smartphone. You may even save the entire Instagram story as a single video if you are using an iOS operating system. 

Instagram Story Creative Features

These Stickers are emojis, images, and GIFs that you can easily add to your Instagram Story. Instagram Story Stickers bring an extra and unique dimension to the content of your posts that makes it even more appealing.

Adding a Selfie Sticker

You will observe a camera icon adjacent to the “# hashtag” once you press the “stickers” icon. You can take a selfie by clicking on this icon, and then press on the image to include a white circle around the said image. Alternately, you may leave the image be with glowing edges.

You may be as creative as you like by taking a selfie with this sticker. For instance, you may insert your face to a picture of the moon and pretend to be an astronaut! There is no limit to the ways you can experiment with this feature!

Adding Geotags: 

By pressing the happy face icon at the top right part of your screen, you can get access to the stickers. Here, you will observe a ‘location’ sticker. A string of options will pop up once you press this sticker. You can also search for your location if you cannot see it amongst the options.

Similar to the selfie and location sticker, all you have to do is scroll and find the one that you would like to use.

The story posted above has a poll, my selfie, and under the selfie (hidden) I added a geotag. You can’t see it and this is to create a cleaner version of the story!

Changing your Sticker Size

You can easily increase and decrease the size of your Story sticker by expanding or pinching it with your two fingers.

Deleting Stickers from your Instagram Story

You need not worry if you are not content with your sticker placement. It is pretty simple to remove them from videos and pictures. All you have to do is press and hold the sticker you want to delete. After that, drag it down to the garbage icon located at the bottom of your screen. The trash icon does not show up until you start the process of dragging an item.

Adding a Link to the Instagram Story

Instagram allows you to add links to your Story once your audience base crosses the 10,000 thresholds. This is a splendid feature to promote a particular product, your website, or your recent blog post.

Simply select the link icon placed at the top part of your screen and put in the link you would like to include. Next, press “Preview Link” to ensure the linking is working fine before pressing “done.”

The viewers will then observe the text ‘See More’ right at the bottom area of the Instagram Story with an arrow that tells them to swipe upwards on the screen to open the attached link.

Adding a Link to the Instagram Story Without 10,000 Followers

If you don’t have 10,000 followers yet, don’t worry. You can use IGTV and use links on the description of your videos. Once you upload your IGTV, you will be able to share your video via stories and your users will be able to access your content from there.

Another option to bypass the 10,000 followers mark is to use Linktree. A free feature that builds a mini landing page where you can let your followers know about your multiple updates and add multiple links.

Check out my Linktree link. You can create one for your Instagram, completely free.

Want To Explore Ways To Buy Followers and Likes

You might want to explore Fastlykke. They build Instagram followers organically.  Buying followers is not a tactic that fits every brand but if it does, you certainly want a provider with credentials 

Steps to Use Instagram Story Polls

These polls are essentially stickers that enable you to receive feedback directly from the viewers of your Instagram Stories. In contrast to a regular Instagram post, these Instagram Stories have limited options for engagements. Hence, poll stickers are a splendid way in which you can involve your audience and viewers. 

         i.            After you have begun your Instagram Story post, press the smiley icon placed at the top of your screen. Upon clicking the icon, a variety of stickers will show up.

       ii.            Choose the “poll” sticker and enter the text of your question.

      iii.            To put in your own poll responses, press the default “No” and “Yes” buttons.

     iv.            Drag and pinch to alter the location and size of the poll sticker as per your needs.

       v.            Sometimes a poll is hard to observe. In this case, you may use the brush tool to include a solid color behind the spot where you have placed the poll sticker. This helps to make the poll more conspicuous.

If you want to check out your poll results, you have to swipe upwards on the post so that you can observe the views of your Instagram Story. This will allow you to see which individual voted for which option. You can also get the number of total votes for every choice made.

Bear in mind that whoever responds in your poll will also be able to observe how many votes each option in the poll got.

Using Instagram Story Shopping

This feature allows ecommerce brands worldwide to produce an appealing digital storefront for individuals to check out your best merchandise with a single click.

To make use of this Shopping feature in Instagram Stories, you need to have an Instagram business account instead of a personal profile.

After you have your account ready, you will need to get approval from Instagram. This approval enables your Instagram account to make use of the Instagram Story Shopping feature.

The following are the precise steps that you have to take:

1.   Upload the catalog of your product via the catalog manager on Facebook.

2.   Wait for the approval from Instagram approval. This might take a couple of days, so you need to be patient.

3.   Open your Instagram profile after the approval comes through. Click on “Settings.”

4.   Click on Business-> Shopping-> Continue.

5.   Press “ Done” after having selected your product catalog

You may begin adding product stickers to your Stories after you are 100 percent set up for Instagram Shopping.

         i.            Begin your Instagram Stories post.

       ii.            Press the smiley icon positioned at the top of your screen. Once you click the icon, a variety of stickers will come up.

      iii.            Choose the “Product” sticker.

     iv.            From your product catalog, select the relevant product.

       v.            You can drag and pinch to alter the product sticker size and move its location to wherever you want.

You may add one product sticker for every Instagram Story. Instagram Stories that feature a product sticker may also show up in the Shopping section.

Additional Tips to Use Instagram Stories

Adding GIFs to your Instagram Story

The ideal way you can add GIFs to your Instagram Story is by downloading or converting your GIF into a video clip. You then send it over to yourself and then add the file to your Instagram story through the camera gallery.

Incorporating music to your video

 The process of adding music in your video is similar to the one in Snapchat. You can play the music from any device and from any streaming service that you like. You can also play music from your own library if you want! All you have to do press “play,” head back to the Instagram Story and click “record.” It is that simple!

Adding face filters

You will see a face icon at the bottom corner of your screen when you are in the camera view. By tapping this icon, you can access various face filters.

Tips To Convert Followers Into Real Customers

Polish Your First Impression

Online marketing is all about first impression. If users can’t trust in your ability to show up professionally, they won’t do business with you. Make sure you use the showcase feature on Instagram Stories by highlighting the content that helps users to form a great first impression of you.

Pro tip: recreate your website menu on Highlights. Check my IG profile here.

Educate Your Audience

Instagram Stories isn’t any different from any digital marketing channel. You want to attract users to you. However, it’s not about YOU. It’s about them. Plan your content strategically. Consider that you only have 15 seconds to form a great first impression, and make them feel like they can like you, trust you, and believe in you.

Build Trust By Showing Vulnerability

Your audience is not expecting to see picture-perfect stories. They want to see you- the real you. Authenticity and vulnerability play a very important role here. The more authentic, real, and vulnerable you are, the more your users feel like “you get them”.

Direct Message & Follow Up

Since you will have access to the accounts who watched your stories, don’t hesitate to reach out. This is the best way to build relationships and work on your sales funnel with class! Don’t be spammy. People hate those accounts. You will be blocked.

Bottom Line

There is no denying that when used at their maximum potential, Instagram Stories are indeed a very powerful and effective tool.  Moreover, the Instagram Stories features that are available to all users provide you with a blank canvas. This allows you to exploit your creativity as you like!

However, you ought to keep in mind that when using Stories, you should put your focus on developing and nurturing relationships with your viewers and audience.

Finally, the most important thing is that regardless of how you use Instagram Stories, you should have fun!

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How To Get More Instagram Story Views

For micro-influencers who are looking for ways to monetize their audience, more views on their Instagram stories are on their wish list.

Are you a micro-influencer with audacious goals to turn your Instagram channel into a platform? Are you looking for strategies to launch a successful influencer marketing campaign? If so, this article will be spot on!

I will be telling you quick hacks that will turn your Ig stories into real money-making activity.

Instagram Stories Are One Of The Top Marketing Channels In 2019

You have probably noticed from doing your micro influencer marketing that your stories get more views than your regular-organic posts. If you want to monetize your account, don’t get discouraged just because you don’t get hundreds of likes on your posts. You still can show your prospect marketing partners lots of reach via Instagram stories.

Stats That Stand Out About Instagram Stories In Almost 2020

Stories really did start out as a simple add-on feature. Instagram publicly copied them from Snapchat which is what happens in the tech world anyway!

With brands being able to connect so well with their audience through Stories content (especially with increasingly interactive options like Stories polls, stickers, and story highlights, it’s not surprising that the number of Stories is catching up to the number of posts people are publishing.

Stories vs Feeds

46% of all content on Instagram is coming from Stories, falling only slightly behind the 54% of organic posts on news feeds.

Image source: socialbakers

Notice that this image is from January 2018 and this makes me predict that by 2020 stories will surpass the number of posts that brands share on Instagram.

You might be able to tell if my prediction is right if you check right not your circle of Instagram connections. What do you notice? Where do they post more? I personally post more frequent on Ig stories than in my feeds. How about you?

Marketing Essentials In Influencer Campaigns

Now that you’re gonna be playing a bigger game, we need to get you to get some new words that will help you discussing money with your future clients.

✔️ Audience Metrics. Your future clients are brands or local business owners who are looking to get more visibility. They probably have heard about influencer marketing but that doesn’t mean they will open their wallet without any proof that they will get something in return for their bucks. This is why you need to always carry your metrics.

I recommend you getting a subscription with Later.com. They produce clean reports, especially for stories and hashtags, which is intelligence that you will need.

✔️Storytelling Mastery.  One of the essentials I teach my influencer marketing clients is storytelling. Listen, this is a degree on its own. So, make no mistake, that professional storytelling will take you some learning and some practice with the big warning: you must be OK with sucking at this at first. And it’s ok. 🤷‍♀️

The essence of a great story is “its ability not only to make you care, but also to make you forget; forget your worries, your problems, even your pain. The story helps you enter a new, magical world that is extremely appealing. The person who helps you achieve such a thing automatically becomes extremely appealing too.” Says one of the most famous storytellers in the world, creator of Toy Story, Andrew Stanton.

Do you think marketing is about recording a video and share with a target audience? There is more!

What kind of process occurs in our brains that can help us experience all of the feelings evoked by a good story?

Let’s say you are in a meeting room and you have to attend a PowerPoint presentation by one of your colleagues. During this process, two parts of your brain, the Broca’s area, and the Wernicke’s area are activated.

These are the language-processing areas, which help us decode words and determine meaning. Other than that, they don’t do anything. Therefore, when this process takes place alone, it is almost impossible for our brains to feel engaged with the speaker, and we consequently lose interest.

When we are being told a story, however, things change dramatically. Not only are the language processing parts in our brain activated, but so is any other area of our brain that we would use to experience the events of the story.

In essence, you are not just listening to a story, you make yourself part of it. Evidently, a story can put your whole brain to work. And yet, it gets better. You can read more about this topic here.

Sorry for taking you on this side-track, but I figured you would not mind a deeper explanation with the science of persuasion!

There is something extraordinary happening during the narration of a story, something that helps the brains of the narrator and the listener to synchronize.

✔️Consistent Voice: if my client wants to hire an influencer, I will make sure they have a consistent voice. A captivated audience, interested in knowing more about my product or my services.

For example, a local restaurant that wants to launch a new vegan menu will be interested in collaborating with a micro-influencer that features vegan food, consistently. We look to see if they have a real community.

We check their stories, highlights, and comments, way before reaching out to them.

This is something you need to be aware of. You never know who is watching you! So always stay consistent with your voice. And hey, if there are reasons to stay out of your brand voice, you can always explain on the post or clean it later.

✔️Charisma: a charismatic voice will always be preferred by brands who are looking for micro-influencers. And the best way you can show this is via stories. Show us the real you! Smile more. Be intentional about showing us your charisma! It will help you tremendously.

✔️Responsive: Stories are fast! They disappear in 24 hours so you want to make sure you can be able to respond and engage with those users who are seeing your story. This is crucial.

A pro tip: If you notice a brand looking at your story, don’t be afraid of sending a personalized message to let them know you appreciate them. Say something that stands out. Don’t be a copy cat!

I manage accounts for brands and the messages we get are way too spammy. We don’t pass those to our clients. So, be aware of this! Brands have marketing teams and they won’t recommend you if you’re just another one.

Enough with lecturing, let’s get you more views!

For the sake of keeping this post under 2,000 words, I am assuming that you are a pro at designing templates and graphics. If not, I wrote this article with my favorite templates. Now let’s go to the hacks!

Finding the Right Time

You already take careful consideration and planning when managing your Instagram account. But it’s time to take it to the next level. And that means optimizing your posts.

Finding the right time is one step. Consider when your followers may be online. You can do this by checking on your Instagram analytics.

Simply go to your “My Profile” page and take a look at your metrics. When do you see the most traffic? Maybe you have early risers checking your posts by 9 am. Or perhaps your followers lead busy lives and don’t have time to check out Instagram until bedtime?

These times can help when planning for stories. Think of them as deadlines. You want to hit these peak times as much as possible to ensure the most readership.

Furthermore, keep your most active time zones in mind. You might live in sunny Los Angeles, but if the majority of your followers are in New York City, you may want to post according to their time zone and not your own.

I feel like getting the timing right takes care of at least 50% of your growth.

Invisible Hashtags: How To Add Invisible Hashtags To Your Instagram Story

Do you want more people to see your stories, Instagram profile and all the hard work you put in? OH YASS you do, that is the whole point, right? Then you need to learn how to add invisible hashtags to your Instagram story.

There is a way to put your favorite #hashtags into an Instagram story. There is also a way to make them invisible so no one else will find out your secret hashtags, or even that you use them at all!

When you have written your hashtag, simply tap the pen. We love this pen since it can match the text to any color visible in the photo.

Drag the pen across the screen (to the background of the text) until the hashtag matches the background.

Don’t know how to edit colors or want to try something else? You can also hide your hashtags with a sticker!

Why put #Hashtags in your Instagram Story?

When people search on hashtags there’s a story-section! This means that your story is visible to everyone who watches your hashtag’s story!

Pro tip: go for the very popular hashtags here. This isn’t the same as your Instagram feed. Hashtag stories are pinned at the top and they are hard to find, so you need to use the ones that are getting lots of views.

Location Tags

There’s a feature on Instagram that many people either don’t know about, or don’t really understand how to use. This feature is geotags. And the benefits of using geotags on Instagram can actually be really valuable to your business if you learn to use them properly!

First, in case you’re not aware, let’s make sure you know what a geotag is. Instagram defines it as: “Geotagging is a technical term for storing the latitude and longitude of your current location with your photo. This data is collected by the GPS device in your phone or tablet and is accessible to Instagram if you grant permission.”

Basically, when you take a photo, the coordinates of where you were are attached to that photo. If (and only if) you tell Instagram to publicize this location, you can tag your photo with the location where you are. To be clear, Instagram will not post your location data on any photo until you choose the “Add to Photo Map” during the upload process.

Adding location tags (geotagging) is also a great way to get more views. If you don’t want to show the location of if the story already looks too busy, hide it behind a sticker, but always tag the location (or any location even if you’re not there).

Pro tip: find location trends and check yourself in those! This will help you to hack that Instagram app!

Call To Action (WITFM)

Remember what you just learned about storytelling? I feel that this is an area where even the best influencer can fail. Because they don’t understand the art of storytelling.

A great call to action integrates your story and makes the audience to take action in an extremely appealing way.

This is very important, especially because you’re about to get hired by brands, and they want to see their money! So you will need some practice!

Some tips to get more conversions and responses from your call to action:

✔️Use teasers. If you’re about to reveal something very interesting, tease me for a few days. Seduce me. Make me remember that I have something very special that can’t miss, and make it very easy for me to remember.

✔️Ignite conversations where your users need to tag a friend. This can almost double your views.

✔️Novelty. Our brains respond to novelty. If you’re offering me something I’ve never seen, I will consider it.

✔️Urgency. Add times and due dates, and remind your audience as much as you need, so that they take action. You will be surprised by how many people wait last minute to do something!

✔️Tag your own account so they can follow you. This is so common sense but we forget!

OVER TO YOU!

What kind of views you got after implementing all of these strategies? Do you have any other tips? I would love to hear!

Make sure you say hello on my Ig! @coachjessicacampos

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Boost Your Brand With Instagram Stories Using These 4 Templates

If this is the first time you’re reading The Greatness Blog, welcome! I’m all about giving away practical and tangible marketing strategies so you can grow your business while having a life!

 

You might want to check The Marketing For Greatness Podcast for entrepreneurs craving for great content.

 

Instagram stories! Yes. Everyone is talking about it. You have shared some photos and videos but have no idea how to market your business.

 

You see them. You think you should be doing them, but it feels silly and you have no idea if it’s a distraction or a real business growth activity.

 

To be honest with you, Instagram Stories is Instagram’s best asset yet. Stories it’s a format that Instagram copied from Snapchat with no regret or shame.

 

Instagram Stories has 500 million users each day, so it’s clearly making some people happy, but, does this help small business owners? The answer is yes!

 

Instagram Stories are fun and creative. It requires creativity and some graphic design skills to market like a pro. I have no doubt that you have them both!

 

We just need to provide you with some tools to make it consistent, and some ninja strategies to reach your targeted people and drive traffic to your website, and even making ecommerce sales!

 

How To Create An Instagram Marketing Strategy

 

Let’s assume you are launching a new product or have some exciting news to share and want to spread your news using Instagram.

 

Great opportunities to plan your Instagram marketing strategy:

✔️New product launch

✔️New location

✔️Looking for models or volunteers

✔️Upcoming event

✔️Special sale

 

You want your audience to hear all about it. Of course, you want them to consider your offer and either, share it with their friends, or buy from you. The obvious next question is: do you have an audience?

Start with audience targeting

 

If you haven’t accessed Facebook’s best tool to find your target audience, you’re about to find gold!

 

Facebook audience insights is where you start. Think about your future buyers. Don’t limit to their demographics. Instead, expand your audience to include their digital behavior. Some examples of digital behaviors to explore:

 

✔️ Pages they follow and like.

✔️ Websites where they shop online.

✔️ The food they like.

✔️ Books they read.

✔️Frequency of activities (do they share content, do they engage in ads, watch videos?)

Image result for facebook audience insights

Don’t just stop at the demographics. Analyze your audience’s digital behaviors so you can serve them content in the way they want.

 

Next: Strategize Your Engagement For Every Post And Story

 

Notice that I mentioned posts and stories – both.  Some basic rules to follow:

 

✔️ Image first. You don’t have to be a master photographer to build a successful Instagram following, but it doesn’t hurt to learn some photography basics. The stronger your image is, the more it will stand out in users’ newsfeeds, and the more they’re going to engage with it. It helps if your image is dominated by a single color (or group of colors), and if your subject matter is clear and in focus.

Need a recommendation of a great app for filters? Try Afterlight. It comes for both, IOS and Android.

 

✔️ Keep it light. Again, Instagram isn’t the place for extended or heavy engagements. In your image, posts, and comments, your goal should be to keep things as concise and light as possible. Get in and get out.

 

Rules for content: captions: no more than 4 paragraphs, 2 sentences each. If you’re leaving a comment, use at least 4 words.

 

How many hashtags should your post have? Hashtags: 30 is the maximum (heavy). 17 is optimal. 5 is the minimum.

 

✔️ Always have a call to action. It’s nice to make your followers happy and keep your audience large, but if your followers aren’t actively doing something, you aren’t going to make your campaign profitable. Every post you make should have some kind of call to action, whether it’s leading people back to your site or having them compete in a contest.

 

✔️ Reward your followers. If you want your audience of followers to stick around, you need to make it worth their while. Reward your followers by giving them exclusive content, discounts, or freebies on occasion. Even a simple thank-you message can be enough to keep users around.

 

✔️ Outbound marketing. Instagram isn’t just about posting content using hashtags and pray for someone to see it. You will need a solid outbound marketing plan that includes: direct messages, thoughtful comments, and genuine conversations.

 

Instagram swipe up (more engagement on Instagram stories)

 

I’m sure you’ve seen stories with a call to action that says “swipe up” and when you do it, it takes you to a website. Your Instagram marketing strategy must have the goal of reaching the 10,000 followers benchmark so you can have a link added to every story.

 

If you don’t have the 10,000 followers, you still can have a swipe up. Read my article How To Add A Link To Instagram Story (Swipe Up) Without 10,000 Followers.

 

Know Your Numbers

 

Truly understanding how your content performs – by tracking key Instagram metrics over time – is the key to developing a content strategy that works for your business!

 

To get a deeper look into your Instagram Stories analytics, open your story and swipe up for a full list of insights. This will pull up a number of important metrics that can help you measure the success of your Instagram Stories:

Image result for instagram metrics stories

 

Having a business profile gives you access to a variety of tools and functionality, including analytics on your posts and stories, additional calls-to-action and buttons you can put on your profile, and third-party integrations. Take advantage!

 

I want to share with you my favorite Instagram Stories Templates to help you to storyboard your story, stand out, and attract more views and engagement.

 

Creative Templates For Your Instagram Stories

 

Audiences (especially millennials) expect brands to share their values, such as sustainability, giving back to the community, and honesty.

 

Polls are one way to engage with your audience and listen to their opinion.

 

Use the “Ask Me” story and design your Instagram Story using a poll format.

 

 

Show off your product catalog

 

“Show, don’t tell” is an essential rule in storytelling, and for good reason. Why tell audiences about all the amazing products you offer when showing them off makes a bigger impact?

 

IKEA USA used Polls to show followers their range of kitchen options and asked them to vote for their favorites. This approach can work for all kinds of products, whether you make dog-patterned sweaters or sweaters for dogs (as long as you have at least two products to compare).

 

This template is great also to get your audience’s attention during pre launch.

IKEA Instagram Poll

 

Gamification

 

We’re all intrigued by fun, but can it lead to more business? If you read the statistics on how many hours people spend playing games, with every subsequent generation spending more time and money, then you’d say it makes a lot of sense.

 

Millennials spend 1.47 hours a day playing games, according to the Wall Street Journal. 1.47 hours!

 

How about designing a Bingo game using Canva? Mix the fun with business by adding your products and services into the mix.  For example, one Bingo spot will be “take a selfie wearing our XY Glasses”.

 

Recognition Story

 

Recognition has a profound effect on the workplace, encouraging more prosocial behavior. The Positive Psychology Program defines “prosocial” as “promoting others’ wellbeing, usually through altruistic acts.” This attitude in the workplace generates more teamwork, more productivity, and more communication between teams. In fact, a simple “thank you” will help give your organization the advantage to outperform your competition more than you think.

 

Make your brand look great by sharing stories about your great people. This is a template from Canva. For a more exclusive look, you can try Envato.

 

Invisible Hashtags: How To Add Invisible Hashtags To Your Instagram Story

 

Do you want more people to see your stories, Instagram profile and all the hard work you put in? OH YASS you do, that is the whole point, right? Then you need to learn how to add invisible hashtags to your Instagram story.

 

There is a way to put your favorite #hashtags to an Instagram story. There is also a way to make them invisible so no one else will find out your secret hashtags, or even that you use them at all!

 

When you have written your hashtag, simply tap the pen. We love this pen since it can match the text to any color visible in the photo.

Drag the pen across the screen (to the background of the text) until the hashtag matches the background.

add-invisible-hashtags-to-your-instagram-story3 add-invisible-hashtags-to-your-instagram-story5

Don’t know how to edit colors or want to try something else? You can also hide your hashtags with a sticker!

 

Why put #Hashtags in your Instagram Story?

 

When people search on hashtags there’s a story-section! This means that your story is visible to everyone who watches your hashtag’s story!

OVER TO YOU!

What Instagram Stories Template do you like the most? Do you have any other tips? Make sure you explore our Forensic Social Media Marketing Strategies and Services.