Instagram Stories: What they are and how your business should be using them

Instagram Stories allow Instagram users to share photos and videos to their "Story" -- which is visible to followers of the user's Instagram account -- and to specific users the Story's sender follows. When you click to watch someone’s Story, it will show either a photo or a video that they’ve posted. If it’s a photo, it will generally show for about 5 seconds; if it’s a video, it will show for a maximum of 15 seconds Like in Snapchat, Instagram Stories disappear after 24 hours.

Instagram Stories can drive engagement and value -- whether you're sharing a Story from a brand account or your own personal profile. The feature was launched in August, 2016 and contributed to the huge jump in user’s time spent in-app every day from 24 minutes to 32

Whether you are trying to grow brand awareness, grow traffic to videos or newsletter outside of Instagram, or share sponsored content, businesses are using Instagram Stories to publish fun disappearing content that infuses brand voice and personality without taking up too much of the average techie's dwindling attention span.

TechCrunch reports that one in five Instagram Stories shared by a brand receives a Direct reply -- giving brands a direct line to connect with their audience and learn more about them.

Simply put, if you’re not using Instagram Stories for business, you could be missing out on a huge opportunity.

Why Instagram Stories Are a Powerful Tool for Business

Instagram Stories are a great way to reach potential new customers — and build a stronger connection with your existing ones. Consumers report that they’ve become more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in their Stories. Instagram Stories have continually evolved over the last few years — introducing more engagement-boosting features that are great for starting conversations, humanizing your brand, and getting real-time feedback straight from your target audience.

Types of content to try on Instagram Stories

Behind-the-Scenes Stories

Part of the beauty of Instagram Stories is that they don’t have to be big, polished productions. Want to introduce your team to the world? Give an office tour? Show off how a product is made? Or give followers special access to a company event?  Instagram stories is the perfect way to bring your followers along. 

How-To’s and Tutorials

Any business can create tutorials or share advice related to their products and services. Stories’ sequential format makes them perfect for step-by-step, how-to style content. From recipes to beauty tutorials and beyond, bite-sized educational content is an engaging alternative to traditional video or blog post.

Sharing User Generated Content (UGC)

Many brands share Stories dedicated to their followers’ user generated content such as tagged customer photos. Many companies will use a dedicated hashtags for their customers to post and then use the content to create a massive Story slideshow. This is a great way to give customers a sense of community and recognition. 

Weekly Series 

When creating a weekly series for your Instagram account, look at what fits your business model and examine what would be relatable and relevant to your ideal client. You can offer a “Tips on Tuesday” series or come up with another creative name that can become a trigger for your audience. Consistency with posting content will help engage your followers. 

Customer Questions/Advice Content

To generate advice content, keep a running list of common customer questions as they come up and answer them in a story (or open the Questions feature on Instagram stories!). If one person asks a question, chances are others would like to know the same thing. Publicly sharing your response could benefit more people. This process also ensures you’ll never run out of fresh content ideas for your stories.

Instagram Stories are part of your engagement strategy

At the end of the day, if your business is on Instagram, you need to be using Instagram Stories for business! Use it to your advantage to drive engagement and customer interest.

Want to enjoy the benefits of great social media strategy and content management without the hassle of worrying about it? You can always contact us to learn more about how we help companies manage their marketing.