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The Best Practices For Instagram Stories

Instagram is an ever-evolving social media platform with updates on the regular. When it first launched, the social networking service was used to post personal pictures for friends or family. In 2012, Instagram was acquired by Facebook and has since seen a plethora of changes. Fast-forward to 2018, you can now have multiple accounts logged in at once, there’s been the addition of videos, advertiser friendly features, live stories, polls, and linkable bios  as part of your profile. One of the most important features, Insta Stories, receives 2-3x more engagement than general content posted to the feed. But, this sort of traffic doesn’t just come out of nowhere…you have to make your stories appealing to your audience. Here are 4 tips you need to use in your Instagram Stories:

 

  1. Highlight & Archive: On every Instagram account, you can keep stories highlighted in your bio. Companies, brands and influencers all over this platform use it to highlight products, tutorials, events, partners, and reviews. This is an easy way to establish a personality and connection with your audience. Don’t just let that story go to waste, highlight and archive!
  2. Swipe-up Links (if you have 10,000 followers): If your account has more than 10,000 followers, you can add web links on your stories (betcha didn’t know that!) Take every advantage you can to generate sales or reach by putting a link to your website, blog, full video and more! This is an easy and less invasive way to drive traffic over to your website.
  3. Create an Aesthetic and Stick to It: Instagram is filled with millions and millions of accounts, so how do you make yourself stand out? Answer: create an aesthetic to your account to give it theme. When stories have an aesthetic or theme to it makes you seem more unique and memorable. This practice can also give your account a voice and personality. Find the audience you want to attract, create an aesthetic, and draw in those followers.
  4. Short and Simple: Don’t let stories go on too long or post too many at once. Not only does posting numerous stories in a short time frame overwhelm the followers, it can dry out your creativity. If you have good ideas, save them for the next day or any other day to come. 2-3 stories a day is the ideal amount of posts to use. Short and Sweet can’t be beat!

 

New features are always being added and that means it is incredibly important for you to keep yourself up to date. Instagram Stories have shown great success in bringing more engagement/traffic to Instagram accounts. If you want to make your stories stand out from the others, keep our tips in mind. Stories can be a great addition to your Instagram page, but keep an eye on InstagramTV, a new feature similar to Youtube. This new feature shows great potential for growth in businesses/brands/influencers.