Up your Instagram story game

Since launching in 2016, Instagram stories have risen in popularity, overtaking main feed posting. Instagram stories are instant access to behind the scenes, authentic content that people love to see more of.

Are you utilising Instagram’s top story features to drive engagement to your business? Keep reading for the best ways to up your story game.

Sharing your main feed post to your story

Sharing your new post to your story is important as due to the ever changing algorithm, the majority of your followers may not see your post but will see your story.

Add hashtags but hide them behind the post so it doesn’t clutter the image but still helps you to reach more people. Ensure you’re adding location tags and mentions as this is also a great way to reach more users.

Make this story exciting by adding imagery to the background or you can use the text option as creative shapes in your story.

Here is an example below to see what we mean:

• Add your post to story.
• Colour select your background colour (we went with grey to fit with the main colour of the image and ensure the objects stood out in the picture.
• Type out a full stop, add the highlight so you have a white box and place it behind the image. Do this twice as shown below.
• Add your hashtags and location and hide behind the post.
• Add your text. We used the last option as this is most fitting with our brand.

Before

After

Use fun GIFS

Creators often create GIF’s which can be hard to find with a generic search. Try using the names below to make your story aesthetically pleasing:

• ‘Gladdest’
• haley ivers’
• ‘rizzprint’
• ‘Mery.1’
• ‘Minimal’
• ‘lizaproch’
• ‘Anchetulil’

Create your own

Instagram has released an amazing new link sticker to make it easier to drive traffic to your site. However, it’s not 100% clear where the link takes you unless you’re typing out where you’re directing your followers too.

On Canva you can create your own ‘Click Here’ to go over the top of your link. Users can then click this with ease and be directed to your website. Simply design an image on Canva, download it as a PNG, crop any white lines and upload it as an external picture to your story and place it over the link.

Before

After

Utilising ‘Stickers’ to connect with potential customers

Polls

The sticker poll feature on Instagram stories is a great way to connect with potential customers. For one of our clients, we recently asked if followers had tried their products. If they voted NO, we DM’d them a 15% off code as a new customer and if they voted YES, we also DM’d them a 15% off code for their loyalty. Use a unique code so that you can measure sales from the activity. It’s a win-win and you get to connect directly with the buyer.

Captions

Ensuring your content is accessible up there with one of the most important and Instagram has created a new captions sticker. If you’re taking a video, add captions and then users who can’t listen for whatever reason, are able to read what you’re saying.

‘Add Yours’

A brand new sticker and one we recently posted about here is this ‘Add Yours’. This new, interactive sticker means you can create content chains on stories for followers of followers to share, driving community engagement tenfold. For example, if you share this sticker asking followers to share an image of something relevant and they do, then their followers will see this and you will then have a direct link back to your account.

Quiz/Questions

These stickers are a really fun way to get your followers engaged in your account. With the quiz sticker, you can do story quizzes on anything relevant to brand, but make sure it’s fine to keep the attention of your followers.

Question stickers are also a good way to either get feedback from your followers or maybe hold a Q&A about your business. You’ll be surprised with how many people take part.

If you would like any support in utilising Instagram for your business then please do get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.

Contact Chloe