By Esmée Hardwick-Slack
Read time: 2 minutes
Today’s customers are making purchase decisions based on the story behind a particular brand. Instagram’s “Stories” functionality can allow you to harness this.
What is Instagram Stories?
Instagram Stories allows you to post photos and videos in chronological order to tell a “story”. These posts do not appear in your regular collection of Instagram posts: instead, they disappear after a 24-hour period. This means that users don’t have to worry about over posting – they can share as many updates as they like throughout the day, without clogging their online follower’s news feeds. They also integrate with Shopify, which allows businesses to tag products in a post so that users can click to buy directly via Instagram.
How can Instagram work for my business?
Instagram is a useful tool for small and medium sized businesses. The app is free to use and provides an opportunity to showcase products and services in action. This can help your customers and potential future clients understand the value that your products or services offer. As customers are becoming increasingly engaged with the story behind a particular brand, Instagram can offer businesses an opportunity to share some behind the scenes insights with customers.
What should I post about on Stories?
Instagram Stories is designed to be used differently than standard Instagram posts. Regular Instagram posts are best used for product updates, company news, announcing something like an online sale, etc. Instagram Stories is better suited to real time “live” news updates from a business. For example, the build up towards a new product launch, culminating in the actual reveal of the new product/service can be streamed as a series of live updates using Instagram Stories. This can help boost engagement between your target audience and your brand.
How can I encourage engagement?
Using Instagram Stories can also boost engagement by allowing firms to ask questions, run online competitions, publish a countdown to the launch of something new, etc. All of this activity can help to get people talking and encourage them to interact with your brand more consistently.
Does your business make use of the Instagram Stories tool? Let us know in comments or share your ideas with us on our Instagram account!
Related articles:
Connect effectively in the digital age
Using live-streaming as a marketing tool
