Are Instagram stories right for your marketing plan?
How to use Instagram stories to grow your marketing.
With Instagram’s fully visual platform and custom edits and options for photography, many brands have flocked to this social site to help them market their product more effective and grow their brand reach. Because of the number of users on the Instagram platform, it’s a great way for brands to market their product or service. Both B2B and B2C businesses have capitalized on the user-friendly and user-heavy nature of Instagram, and Instagram stories are growing as another way to reach customers on that platform.
What are Instagram stories?
Instagram stories are a lot like Snapchat stories – a series of images or short videos that can be edited with text, emojis, stickers, and more within the Instagram app and then added to a page. These pictures and videos only last for 24 hours, making them a great way to announce new or temporary information like a flash sale or to create buzz around a product release or special event.
Instagram stories can also be used as paid ads for an organization. Instagram story ads can appear automatically in the lineup of video or photo stories of other users a customer follows.
Benefits of Instagram Stories
The number one benefit of Instagram stories is that your customers are already using that feature. It makes sense for your brand to appear among others. Another benefit is that it gives you an additional place to engage with and interact with customers. It gives your business a place to feature content that might not be a good fit for other social channels but that still has a lot of value.
Best Instagram Story Examples
Plenty of brands have showcased some creative Instagram stories to help grow their following or boost their engagement with their audience. Some of the best Instagram stories for business include:
- Behind the scenes: Instagram stories are a great place to showcase info that might not fit on other platforms or among your other Instagram posts. You can do a short interview with a new staff member, answer questions that your customers have posed, or show a short tutorial of a product.
- Interactive content: Instagram stories are great places to ask your users questions, either through a video or image, allowing for timely feedback.
- Announce posts in other places: Just like you can use Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter to tell followers you have a new product or blog post, Instagram stories can be used the same way.
- Takeovers: Some brands have guests to take over their Instagram stories – that means that “Insta celebrities” who already have a following can be hosted on your account and bring more awareness to your brand through their connections. Similarly, some brands have their influencers use their own Instagram stories and Instagram channels to post information, like reviews and how-to pieces, about a brand or product.
Using Instagram stories for business doesn’t have to be a difficult addition – it can be rolled into the social media you’re already using. Be creative, see what gets engagement from users, and watch other brands to see just how powerful and interesting Instagram stories for business can be.
