Guide: How to Use Instagram Stories For Business
It may seem like digital marketing is complicated. It doesn’t have to be – there is an excellent tool that you can use to get the word out about your company and it is right there in the palm of your hand. Yes, you can use your smartphone to create campaigns to grab people’s attention. The app that you are going to use is free – Instagram.
There was a time that Instagram was just a photo app where people shared pictures of things that they saw. But then video became a big part of the app – and people began using it instead. They added a Stories feature … and that is where you can really unleash the power of your creativity.
By using this, you can possibly drive sales to your business and gain loyal followers who will be ready to see what you are introducing next. Here are ways that you can do that.
Use Product Stickers
While you can have fun creating videos that grab people’s interest, you can add things like product stickers, which allow you to tag specific things that you sell. It can directly link to a place where people can go buy that specific item, like a necklace, for example.
These stickers are not just for videos, though. You can put them on regular posts, too. The stickers can be modified to suit whatever aesthetic you want – the template is very malleable. Using this can help you if you have a small following base.
Use Links
Does your account have over 10K followers? If you do, you can add direct links to your story. That makes things easy for those who are viewing the story to just swipe up and go to your site to get whatever you are promoting.
You should always have some mention of a link in your story – it can be done vocally, in the description, or tell them to swipe up. You can even put a GIF label at the bottom of the video. Mention links even if you don’t have 10K followers.
Create Urgency With Countdown Stickers
Do you have something that you want to sell quickly? Creating countdown stickers to put on your story can do just that. It can feed into people’s fears of missing out on things and get them to go to your site to get it before the perceived elapse of the time limit.
You can also do this to set up new releases of products. This can get people ready to come to your site as soon as the product is launched. It creates a real sense of anticipation, especially if you have made popular items before.
Make Ads
Yes, you can create advertising campaigns using Instagram Stories. It is a great way to capture people’s attention. You have an audience there using the app – create things to make them want to go to your site and buy the things that you offer.
This can be a great way to save money, too. Yes, there are the traditional avenues of advertising, but that medium is changing with how many people are opting to go to streaming rather than watch cable. The thing with Instagram Stories is that you can create something to get people to watch in a short amount of time while not spending a lot of money on ad space.
All you need to do is go through Facebook’s Ads manager and create campaigns that will appear on Instagram. You can even pick the demographics that you want these ads to go out to. That way, you can be sure that you are hitting the target audience that will help drive your campaigns to success.
There are some other strategies that you should employ when using Instagram Stories. They include using hashtags and location tags, since there are people who follow these tags. You need to post consistently. People want to follow accounts that regularly post. Be sure to interact with the people that follow you – it builds a sense of community.
These are just some of the ways that you can use Instagram Stories to your favor. Of course, your skills and talents of creating memorable videos to grab and hold your audience’s attention is what will help your whole conversion rate. But you have a tool in front of you that is free and has a very short learning curve. Hopefully, you will use it to your advantage.
Photo by Souvik Banerjee on Unsplash