In this article we look at how Instagram Stories can be used for the development of your Company’s Social Media Strategy.
Thanks to Social Media Marketing, we can carry out various activities that allow you to:
- Improve Your Brand Awareness
- Improve the visibility of your Company or Business in your target market
- Acquire new potential customers
- Find agents interested in selling your Product or Service
- Finding Companies Interested in Distributing Your Product or Service
Instagram is one of the most widely used social networks. The ease of use, enjoyment and sharing allows for extremely fast, persuasive and high-impact campaigns to be generated.
Why do marketing on Instagram?
If you want to reach a large audience and improve your visibility on social networks, Instagram may be the right tool.
But it is important to check beforehand whether your Target and Market are reachable with this Communication Channel.
Each Social uses its own languages, codes, metrics.
This is why it is important to use an agency, such as Factory Communication, that specializes in Social Media Marketing, otherwise you would risk wasting valuable time and energy.
There are endless opportunities to do business and generate new contacts, thanks to Social Networks.
How to best manage your company’s Social Channels…
Planning a thorough social strategy today is essential for all Companies.
An effective and efficient strategy encompasses a range of practices from online relationship management (PR 2.0) to web page optimization made for social media (SMO, Social Media Optimization).
Instagram Stories. How they can give your company visibility
The popular platform has made Instagram Stories available since yesterday, an update that undermines the market for short photos and videos that are deleted after only 24 hours, until now manned by Snapchat with 150 thousand daily users.
Instagram Stories are the future to be made the most of on our mobile devices.
Not surprisingly, the platform is investing heavily in new features such as donations, quiz stickers, and much more that we have not yet been made aware of.
To date, they are seen by more than 500 million users, a number that is sure to grow as Stories are the ideal format for creating engagement (and not only among Generation Z).
Stories introduces the ability to combine up to 100 photos and videos to create one’s own personalized story, images and videos are customizable with text, emoji, stickers and filters, and will not appear in one’s profile feed unless the user decides to save and reuse the elements.
The login screen is enriched, a top bar where the user will view profile photos of the accounts of friends or celebrities with whom they interact most frequently: if the smiley face is bordered by a colored circle, it means there is a new story to see.
This news certainly has more value in the consumer world than in the business world, although some companies might set up sweepstakes based on customer loyalty or exploit this feature to convey limited-time promotions for example with discount codes valid for 24 hours.
Want more engagement for your Instagram Stories?
And now let’s look at some tips for stimulating users of your Instagram Stories.
Let’s start with a brief definition of Engagement:
“The Italian translation of Engagement is “involvement.” We can therefore define Engagement as the ability of a Brand, through its products, services and Communication channels to create solid and lasting relationships with its users, establishing a bond between the brand itself and the consumer.”
In the Marketing Glossary section of our site, you can find an in-depth discussion ofEngagement.
Below we will provide some useful tips to better engage your followers through Instagram Stories.
Add a “tap for more”
The “tap to know more” technique is very simple and straightforward.
In your Instagram Story, add text and a graphic to invite viewers to tap the right side of the screen.
This will allow them to view the next segment of the story.
automatically after 15 seconds, but “tap for more” will help you engage users in different ways:
- You will give viewers a sense of control by making them active participants in the progression of the story;
- You will activate users in the transition from passive to active;
- You will create curiosity for what comes next;
- You will decrease the likelihood of dropout.
You can also ask a question to capture interest and complete with the answer in the next Instagram Stories.
There are no limits to the imagination to lead the user to share content.
Create freebies content
Another way to get Instagram users to interact with your Instagram Stories is to provide valuable content that they will want to take a screenshot of.
For example, in the account of @mrwonderful_en you will find a “backgrounds” section among the highlights.
You can create backgrounds to share in your story so that users can then use them on their smartphones.
Perhaps, before posting you can include a Story where you go to announce the sharing of valuable content.
Something like “Are you ready for our awesome wallpapers? Get ready for the screenshot.”
Alternatively, depending on your industry you can create photo tutorials, lists, Q&A sessions, and more.
Establishes conversations and relationships
The Instagram question sticker is a great way to get feedback from your audience or collect questions.
If you use this feature in a more strategic way, it is even possible to understand useful information about your audience.
Find out what content they want and even derive input for products/services to market in the future.
Here are some suggestions:
- Ask me anything you want: asking your audience questions can help you humanize your brand and make your audience feel closer to your company;
- What are the biggest difficulties with our product/service X: This feedback can help you identify potential topics to cover in your Instagram Stories;
- Today is [topic] day! Ask me your questions: soliciting questions on a specific topic can take your content to the next level;
- What content would you like to see on my channel: asking your viewers feedback its content will help you understand what they need, which will improve engagement over time.
Increase time on your Stories
If you hold your finger down on an Instagram story, it will freeze and not progress until you release.
You can leverage this feature to ask viewers to hold if an image contains more text than they can read in 15 seconds.
You can create long portions of text and ask to hold to read (of course make sure this is of value).
Or devise “interactive” images in which you will ask your users to stop and spot differences, a character or anything else you can think of.
In the latter case, several principles of gamification, a discipline that is popular especially among the very young, would be activated.
Do you want to increase the visibility of your Company or Professional Activity on Instagram? Find out how to. Read these articles.