These days when video marketing is beginning to have a profound effect on businesses, Instagram Stories have come as a godsend. Start-ups and big businesses houses, all have jumped into the bandwagon that is created by Instagram Stories. It can showcase just about anything that the business and social media marketing teams want to show their customers. It can be about the journey of the company, the birth of a product, a live event, an announcement, or a poll, the list is endless and knows no bounds.
So, what is it that is so exciting about Instagram Story and how can businesses include it into their marketing campaigns? Here are your answers.
What is Instagram Story?
So, first things first. What exactly is an Instagram Story? Well… it is like a 15-second video that can be created with videos, available stickers on Instagram, emojis, and buttons. It enables us to use this feature more creatively than ever before. Companies and brands can include videos, emojis, filters, stickers in their Instagram Stories.
Users can know who has seen their Instagram Stories and know more about who is more interested in their products and brands. They can add different effects to each slide and also post this as your Instagram profile. So, there are some great ways to use this feature of Instagram Story.
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Tips on how to add Instagram Story
“The stories continue to grow in popularity. With each update, more and more new features are added, the use of which has a positive effect on reach and sales – links for everyone, stickers with adding photos on a given topic, design tools. There are also tons of tutorials, so today everyone can make beautiful stories without even buying expensive courses.” – in one of her recent blog posts as elaborated by Violet Rich, the copywriter, and the social media marketing manager of Inflact.
Here are some tips on how you can add an Instagram story to your marketing campaign. Let’s find out!
Answer questions
You can answer the dumbest questions, that is if they have anything to do with your business, on your Instagram Story. The questions that you can answer may be varied, but all of them point out the one basic factor of your marketing campaign. That is to engage with customers.
A great way to start this is to add “Ask me anything” to your Instagram Story. Your audience is sure to send in a volley of questions that you can answer promptly. It shows how engaged your audience is with your business. Create a video about the “Q&A” session that you had, and it will be a highlight of your Instagram reel.
Timely Promotions
You can just about promote anything in your Instagram Story. It can be a blog post, a product giveaway, discounts, offers, sales, or a product launch. Just in the 15 seconds of your Instagram Story, you can include so much info that is packed in to give the fresh and latest news about your business to customers. It may be a GIF animation, text announcement, an eye-catching photo, an emoji, or video.
You can then add a ‘CTA’ button at the end of the Instagram Story or provide a link that redirects customers to your desired website or online shopping portal. You can also add a direct button in your Instagram Story and direct your customers to go to a link. To ensure that your Instagram Story will be visible in feeds, you can also include all desired hashtags.
Conduct an online poll
Instagram Stories can be used to conduct an online poll. Everybody likes to offer their opinions and polls are a great way to engage your audience. Poll stickers are very popular and are used by Instagram influencers very much. You can ask simple yes and no questions and ask for the audience’s opinion.
The greatest benefit of such an online audience poll is that you get feedback in real-time. Your customers also love such polls, and they have to just tap on a yes or no button. It also shows how engaging your Instagram Story is, and whether you have targeted the right kind of audience.
Use Question stickers
Question stickers are a great way to makes brands more visual. Social media managers can make their marketing campaigns that revolve around a particular brand by making Instagram Story. They can ask questions that they think are critical to their products or brand success.
When the audience believes in that particular brand, they can be very engaging to the Instagram Story. An active customer interaction, their opinions, feedback, and responses show how loyal is your customer base and how you have succeeded in making them loyal to your brand. After all, they will never give feedback unless they are not interested in your brand.
Make an Instagram Story and have an answer sticker where customers can type in their feedback in the box. By asking a question, and making them type something, you can even get content for your next Instagram Story.
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Reaction Slider
There are quite a lot of ways of engaging customers through Instagram Stories. All are made to evoke a certain response from your audience. Include a Reaction slider to your Instagram Story where customers have to drag a slider and answer a question. Reaction slider is a very engaging way of engaging customers.
Promote a product
Instagram Story can be used in creative ways to promote a product. Just 15 minutes of Instagram Story is enough for a social marketing campaign to garner the curiosity and interest in the audience to a particular launch of a product. It is the most creative way to launch a product too, without the use of ads. This is the reason more and more businesses are turning to Instagram Story.
Product stickers can be used to drive customers to the purchase page. Product stickers are available to select businesses for use on Instagram. They can redirect customers to the landing page or to a web store where they can do the actual purchase.
Collaborate
Marketing teams can make an Instagram Story and show how they collaborate with other influencers and companies in delivering the right products to their audience. Collaborations work best for brands who use Instagram influencers to promote their products and establish their brands.
Such influencers can be paid also. But it is up to the social media marketing campaigns to make the best of Instagram Story and come up to create a story about their collaborations and partnerships.
Story Highlights
Businesses can use Instagram Story to show more about themselves and show it selectively. For example, they can use Highlights and pin them to their Instagram Story. It allows social media marketing campaigns to use the best things to show to the audience.
Using Highlights allows companies and brands to showcase what is best. Businesses can show who they are and what are their product offerings, which are their high-selling products, and display their best products.
Here, the Highlights section is like a brochure where businesses show all that is best in their products and brands. The content on the Highlights is that customers get to see more about the products and see why brands are so successful.
Countdown
Everyone loves a countdown. And Instagram has one sticker for it too. The Countdown sticker can be used in many creative ways to make the customers glued to a particular product launch or a live event or an announcement of a competition or a sale. It is a sure-shot way of keeping customers anticipating an upcoming event.
Marketing campaigns can pitch the Instagram Stories to the right audience and include a countdown timer in their Instagram Story. They can also use this Countdown sticker to great use. For example, to offer discounts up to a particular date, or a deadline to redeem a voucher or count days for a product giveaway to end.
Go live through Instagram Stories
Perhaps, there is something so exciting about a ‘live’ event that makes it so exciting. Instagram knows this too, and it has included a ‘live’ feature. Businesses can adopt this ‘live’ feature too to great use. They can use the Countdown sticker till the actual live event takes place.
Live feature works best for product launches, brand promotion events, exhibitions. Add a promo to your Instagram Story and let the audience glued to your Instagram page. Perhaps you can answer questions later on and ask for customer feedback. A live event is something that has to be used with all preparations before the event. Because during the broadcast of the live event there is just time to show the event.
Direct chat on Instagram
Chat stickers let businesses chat with 32 participants at a time. This Chat feature lets marketing campaigns use a direct messaging function on Instagram. It allows users to access a select group of people who have definite opinions about the product and can provide some valuable inputs about the functionality of certain products and also point out loopholes in brand promotions. This Chat sticker can be put to maximum impact by creatively using it in Instagram Story.
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Wrapping it up
Social marketing teams can be very creative and unique when designing their Instagram Story. However, they have to keep their prime customer base into focus and make their Instagram Story. They have to use specific Instagram features like Live, hashtags, stickers for creative uses when making their Instagram Story impact the audience. They can either promote a product and provide basic info about their new products or keep them entertained.
Instagram Story can be a great marketing tool that gives creative power to marketing teams. A compelling Instagram Story can keep the customers engaged and curious while keeping them loyal to brands.
Web developer and SEO specialist with 20+ years of experience in open-source web development, digital marketing, and search engine optimization. He is also the moderator of this blog "RS Web Solutions (RSWEBSOLS)".
