An Introduction to Instagram Stories
Heard about using Instagram Stories to build your brand but don’t know how (or why) to use them? Read below for an introduction to Instagram Stories:
What: Instagram Stories, widely considered to be Insta’s answer to Snapchat, are photos, videos or messages that you can post for 24 hours. They can include locations, profile tags, polls, and more. Although stories cannot be “liked” by your followers, you can see an up-to-date list of how many people have viewed your insta story.
Why? Because there are 400 million accounts using them every day! And yes, that’s more than Snapchat as a whole. Instagram Stories is great way to grow engagement and build your brand.
How? Swipe right from your home screen and snap away or upload a previous filmed video. Add text, stickers, gifs, polls, location and hashtags. The more engaging the better.
Pro tip: Use hashtags and location tagging to expand your audience. These can be shrunk and hidden with the color selector tool so the post still appears in feeds to others that might not follow you but doesn’t clutter up the image.
Results: Your story will appear at the top of your followers’ feeds and be visible on your profile page. Analytics are available for impressions, reach, replies, taps back/forward, exits and website clicks.
Strategy: Start small by repurposing content you might already be publishing elsewhere like on Facebook or Twitter. Schedule an Instagram Stories Q&A. Take questions over a 24 hour period and have your candidate film his/her responses or just have a staff member type up the responses in first person and publish as a text post. If the content does well, consider saving it as a highlight to your profile.
Now that you’ve had an introduction to Instagram Stories, try it out yourself! Happy ‘graming!