How Businesses Can Market Effectively On Instagram Stories

Since 2016, many brands have used Instagram stories to showcase their products and mission to the world, and to this day, the power of Instagram stories can’t be underestimated.

Many brands prefer to market their products on Instagram because they’ve seen the platform's terrific performance since it was launched more than a decade ago.

Currently, Instagram has two billion monthly active users, the fourth most used social media platform and the second most downloaded app globally. What's great for brands is that the platform continues to improve and enhance its features, and consistently updates the app to keep up with trends.

Even though Instagram stories disappear after 24 hours, unlike a static post that stays forever until you delete it, many brands use them for marketing their products.

Instagram stories solicit higher engagement from your audience since a compelling story will drive a user to react. Many brands also utilize stories to instantly solicit feedback from their followers through a question and answer or a poll.

Of course, having a fun and entertaining Instagram story won't matter if you haven't built your account a considerable following. You’d be at ease to know that despite the reality that acquiring followers is a challenging feat, you can buy Instagram followers from reputable merchants.

If you own a small business and would want to use Instagram stories effectively, here are ways you can do so:

1. Post Engaging Videos

Instagram began as an image-sharing social media site, but it’s included videos in its arsenal of tools to keep up with its users' trends and demands.

With people's attention spans becoming shorter, a 15-second video story would be enough to relay your message to your audience. Don't you worry as the Instagram story has an 86% completion rate, meaning 86% of Instagram users stay to watch a video in its entirety. Many organic followers stay to watch an entire series of stories of a brand and purchase from them.

In one of your Instagram stories, you may feature a user interacting with your product, which makes for more authentic content.

2. Use Stickers And Giphys

Instagram stories have standard stickers and giphys on the app for everyone to use. This particular element allows brands to connect with their audience on a more emotional and more profound level, especially if, as a brand, you’ve created your own customized stickers and giphys that your followers can use when they share a review of your product or post a rave about your stellar customer service.

3. Use Location Tags

Many brick-and-mortar shops have benefited from the location tag feature of Instagram stories. Using this unique feature will allow a brand with a physical location to be easily searched by users on the platform.

When a user searches for a particular item and adds a location, the platform will populate businesses that match the criteria they need, including a story icon for that search.

4. Include Relevant Hashtags

To expand your audience and grow your followers, use relevant hashtags to make your content searchable on the platform. Even if an account doesn't follow you, they can see your content if you use a hashtag they search for.

Brands can also create their own customized hashtags, making their audience more inclined to engage.

However, marketers need to remember that hashtags' popularity doesn't equate to visibility. And, the maximum limit of ten hashtags in an Instagram story doesn't mean you need to use all of them. The ideal number of hashtags is one to three on an Instagram story.

Hashtags on a story can appear quite cluttered, so you may opt to hide them to create a cleaner look for your story. The way to do this is by either pinching them to shrink and making them smaller, or changing them to a semi-transparent color. To obscure a hashtag by topping it with a giphy or sticker could work, but the first two options are the most widely used.

5. Mention Other Users

Tagging other people on your Instagram story will notify them of the activity, and they’ll have the option to share your story on their accounts. This is an excellent way to grow your following. If you tag or mention influencers with whom you partnered, their thousands of followers will be able to view your story when shared. Nano, micro, and mega influencers often use Instagram stories to highlight brands they’ve collaborated with.

6. Use Instagram Story Questions

One of the most frequently engaged stories is the one with questions and choices for answers. It’s a tried-and-true method of increasing engagement since your audience will be encouraged to answer a question that may be related to their life and daily activities.

This feature makes users comfortable to engage since their names will remain anonymous. If you choose to share the response of a follower, they’ll receive a notification even if you don't tag them. This feature allows brands to connect with their audience and get to know their views on many things. In the same way, brand loyalty will increase as your rapport grows.

Conclusion

Instagram has been the go-to platform for many brands and marketers since increasing brand recognition, recall, and knowledge has been easier to achieve with all the app's features.

Instagram stories remain a strong contender for many marketers since impressions are higher than other popular platforms. Today, 400 million users are on Instagram stories. If that number doesn't convince you, what else will?

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes