Imagine if you had only 24 hours to get something, and after that, it disappears forever. If you miss it, you miss it—you have no way of knowing how important it could’ve been. Could it have been life-changing?
Maybe, maybe not.
That’s what Instagram users feel like regularly with Instagram Stories. Stories operate on this human emotion of fear of missing out (FOMO).
And it works, too. The excellent feature leans into the curious nature of humans, leading to an incredible view rate of the Stories.
But because an Instagram Story is easy to upload and quick to get destroyed, it’s easy to ignore its value in your marketing strategy. A carefully curated Instagram strategy with stories can help you increase customer engagement and sales, and develop a human connection with your audience.
Here’s everything you need to know about them.
What are Instagram Stories?
Instagram Stories are self-disappearing media pieces that you can post on your Instagram profile for 24 hours. After that, the Story disappears and you need to add them to Instagram “Story Highlights” for them to be visible after 24 hours of posting. You can post a photo or video content directly from your camera roll, or even a text block over an image.
When you post an Instagram Story, your audience can see a colorful ring around your profile picture, indicating the presence of the story post.
What it means for businesses: Instagram Stories are strategic shares that can humanize your brand on the Instagram app and keep you on top of your audience’s mind. They’re also the perfect way to share events and information that aren’t important enough to get a place on your feed.
What’s more, Instagram Stories are an interactive feature that allows your audience to communicate with you. They can reply via a direct message to your Insta Story, like, or even react on stickers (discussed later in the article).
Why are Instagram Stories important?
Apart from the fact that 500 million users use Instagram Stories every day, there are other business reasons to include Stories in your content strategy:
1. Humanize your brand: Research suggests that consumers prefer to buy from brands that have similar human characteristics to them. This is only possible when you create your own story around your brand and find opportunities to present yourself in front of the audience. Instagram Stories give you endless possibilities to do that.
2. Test out content before posting: An Instagram Story is a great way to understand the type of content your audience likes and dislikes. Before spending the time creating feed posts, you can create a simpler version to test it out in your Instagram Story to understand how your audience reacts. A lot of times, the audience’s reaction might surprise you.
3. Gauge audience sentiment before product development: If you want to launch a new product or service but aren’t sure about the audience demand, Instagram Stories would be an excellent way to estimate that. You can put up your ideas and ask your prospects directly about their interest. You save time by not creating products that aren’t in demand.
For example, Grace Beverly, a social media creator and entrepreneur, successfully launched a stationary product based on audience feedback via Instagram Stories. She started with understanding if there’s a requirement for the product in the first place.
From there, with small mock-ups, she carried out polls and quizzes to understand the audience demand. The demand was much more than the anticipation, helping them ramp up the production instead of going out-of-stock.
4. Develop a deeper connection with the audience: One of the reasons why brands struggle with creating customer loyalty is the absence of a unique connection. The competition is fierce today, and customers can shift to new brands based on prices or offers – unless you have a strong connection with them. With Insta Stories, you get to interact with them regularly, show the humans behind the brand, and more. While this is a long-term strategy, it impacts the purchase decision when it’s time.
5. Keep the algorithm happy: While ranking on Instagram might seem like a mystery, the platform has tried its best to simplify it. The Instagram app ranks Instagram Stories and Feed posts based on a user’s interaction history, engagement history, and overall closeness with your brand.
The more your audience interacts with you, the higher you’ll be ranked on their feeds. This is because interactions signal the algorithm about the audience’s interest in your brand. When you post Stories frequently, you give your audience the chance to engage with you, leading to higher rankings.
This makes creating an Instagram Story not an option, but a necessity if you want the app to keep the reach of your Instagram account intact.
Instagram Stories strategies: What to post on Instagram Stories?
While your Stories don’t have to be as strategic as your Feed posts, you still need to put some thought behind the new story uploads. They are meant to share everyday casual moments via photo or video content. But what do you exactly post on Instagram Stories as a brand?
Here are some content ideas you can use:
1. Behind-the-scene content
Numerous research suggests that consumers want to associate and see the humans behind a product. A leading social psychologist, Adam Waytz, says human interaction has “almost magical powers”.
So, one of the most impactful Stories content to post is casual behind-the-scene work. The process of product development, small details like receiving samples, or showing a celebration in your workplace are all good pieces of content. Don’t be afraid to share the difficult parts of your business, too.
For example, look at how Catbird takes the audience through the process of the creation of products via Stories:
2. Create engagement-driving posts
The platform gives you a lot of in-app tools and Instagram Story features to create Stories and engage more with your audience. Stickers like polls, quizzes, reactions, questions, and countdowns, are easy to use and can be used multiple times. Here’s a brief rundown of each:
a. Poll sticker
A Poll sticker usually asks yes and no questions or gives a choice between two options. You can use this poll sticker icon to play a game, ask for opinions, and more.
b. Quiz sticker
Quizzes are used when you want to understand your audience’s choice from multiple options. You can play a game with this too.
c. Reactions
Reactions are a quick way to understand the level of excitement or interest in a specific topic. The audience can use the sliding motion to select the level.
d. Questions
Question stickers are a great way to get answers to a specific question that you have. Use this sticker to get direct feedback on your content or product, answer FAQs, and more. The replies will come as a direct message to you and you can reply to the responses too.
e. Countdowns
Countdown stickers allow the users to set a reminder when the countdown ends. This notifies your audience and helps them from forgetting an important sale or announcement.
3. Story-exclusive content
You need to keep your Instagram Stories somewhat exclusive. While Stories highlights are great, there should be a special reward for your audience who regularly view Instagram Stories by your brand.
For example, you can conduct a secret giveaway or an exclusive discount for your viewers. That way, they’ll feel like a part of an exclusive community being rewarded for keeping up with your business account.
You can also do Story-exclusive questions and answers without adding them to the highlights and give sneak peeks on upcoming products.
4. Show your products in action
Instagram Stories are mostly followed by your most-primed audience. They are interested in your brand and would like to see more.
So, showcase your products or services in action on your Stories. For example, if you have a tool for home renovations, show the process of the transformation.
Or, if you offer a service, show some steps of the process. For example, If you offer cleaning services, you can share a few clips from the process, the before and after, and more.
