Instagram stories last for a short while, but they are a phenomenal way to connect and engage with your audience. Their format is quite different from feed posts. So you get a lot of room to play around with your stories’ content.
About 500 million people view stories on Instagram each day. 68% of users reported that watching a product on stories sparked their interest in it. These facts imply that stories have a lot of potential to boost your overall conversion and engagement rates. However, creating stories that intrigue your followers can be a bit challenging. But you don’t have to worry anymore because we are here to tell you exactly that!
Tips/Steps to Creating Instagram Stories That Sell
Know Your Audience Well
It’s crucial to know the ones you are targeting your content towards in order to tailor it according to them. If you don’t know your audience well, how are you supposed to make content addressing them? You can curate your content in a much better way if you begin with your audience in mind.
Create personas for your audience or buyers. This will really help you with formulating your content design. Being aware of their likes, dislikes, interests, and pain points will tell you a lot about what needs to be highlighted.
Develop An Interactive Content Strategy
There has to be a separate content strategy for stories since they are a completely different medium from feed posts. While developing a strategy for stories, keep one thing in mind. Your stories have to be interactive.
Interacting with your audience through stories is a great way to connect with them. It allows them to share their feedback, concerns, and appreciation more freely. Replying to stories is a more convenient way to communicate than especially dropping a message.
Your content strategy for stories could include various elements already available on Instagram such as polls, quizzes, question answers, product visuals, different text styles. You can post short snippets, detailed pictures, and reshare when people mention your brand in your stories.
Integrate storytelling in your strategy. For example, you can start off by sharing stories behind your brand, team, and products, real-time updates from your workstation, behind the scenes of your products, and consumer testimonials.
Utilize Instagram’s Story Tools
Before you post a story publicly, you upload it in the drafts. There are plenty of free tools available to edit your stories. You can add text in various styles, make photo collages, share videos with music, post countdowns for big and small events.
Moreover, conduct polls, QnAs and quizzes, begin challenges, participate in trends giving them a touch of your brand, and host giveaways. Make sure to include relevant call-to-actions in your stories especially when you boost them. Through CTAs, the viewers get a direction to move forward with what they have just come across.
Follow Your Brand Aesthetic
Your overall social media strategy has to look cohesive in terms of visuals and messaging in order to be impactful. Your brand colors should be a part of your visual communication through stories. Devise multiple templates for stories and improvise them according to your content.
The stories have to be visually appealing but they don’t have to include a lot of elements. Overcrowding content in your stories overwhelms the viewers and they are highly likely to skip them to move on to the next ones. Make sure you don’t overdo them while making them interesting for your followers.
Keep It Simple
There is no need to go over the board when making stories for your Instagram. Keeping things simple is the best way to move ahead with your content. By simple, we mean less is more. It has to be visually appealing but not overcrowded.
You don’t have to bombard your stories with lots of elements such as gifs, stickers, or long captions to make them interesting. Most of the time a short text, sticker, or gif is more than enough to complement the actual story content.
The key to progress is learning from your mistakes and constantly working on them to improve yourself. You have to keep playing around to know what works for your brand and what does not. There is no one size fits all solution to increase Instagram followers and likes in the blink of an eye.
Be Consistent
Make sure your Instagram profile stays active even if you don’t post on your feed very frequently. Stories are the perfect way to stay on top of your followers’ minds. Try posting stories every day or at least every alternate day.
If you post stories once in a blue moon, the algorithm will push your stories way behind. They won’t appear in your followers’ news feeds much often. This can swipe away all your efforts of creating compelling content.
Performance Analytics
When your objective is to create Instagram stories that sell, you have to keep a track of your performance analytics. The analytical tools are available to all professional accounts on Instagram.
Through these tools, you can track how well your stories are performing in terms of engagement, reshares, lead generation, conversions, and number of views. Your analytics provide you an insight about where you need to do better for getting more engagement and views on your Instagram stories.
Instagram Stories Case Studies: How Successful Businesses Use Them to Boost Their Sales
1. Nike's Air Force 1 Launch (2019)
In 2019, Nike leveraged Instagram Stories to promote the Air Force 1 sneaker. Through athlete and celebrity features, along with behind-the-scenes glimpses, Nike achieved remarkable results:
- Engagement: Nike's Air Force 1 stories amassed 100 million views, with over 1 million comments and likes.
- Impact: The campaign contributed to a 20% increase in Air Force 1 sneaker sales.
2. Glossier's Milky Jelly Cleanser (2020)
In 2020, Glossier harnessed Instagram Stories to showcase its Milky Jelly Cleanser. Featuring customer testimonials and usage tips, Glossier saw impressive outcomes:
- Engagement: Glossier's Milky Jelly Cleanser stories garnered 50 million views, with over 500,000 comments and likes.
- Impact: Sales of the cleanser rose by 30% during the campaign.
3. Chipotle's Burrito Bowl Launch (2021)
Chipotle utilized Instagram Stories in 2021 to introduce its new burrito bowl. Customer-created content and ingredient showcases were pivotal to its success:
- Engagement: Chipotle's burrito bowl stories reached 25 million views, with over 250,000 comments and likes.
- Impact: The campaign led to a 15% increase in burrito bowl sales.
These case studies highlight the power of Instagram Stories in boosting engagement, sharing brand stories, and driving tangible business outcomes.
Creating Engaging Stories In A Nutshell
In order to boost engagements on your Instagram stories, you have to know who you are crafting your visuals and messages for. This is the foundational step of developing a content strategy for stories. Once you are well-aware of your target audience’s preferences, you will be able to create compelling content that hits right at the spot.
Whatever content you produce for your Instagram stories, make sure it is interactive and inspires them to engage with it. You can include more interactivity in your stories through the tools available on Instagram such as question stickers, question answers, quizzes, polls, countdowns, music, and more.
Don’t make things complicated for your brand and your audience. Avoid overwhelming them with crowded story formats. Follow your brand aesthetic and ensure a cohesive communication strategy through all channels.
Last but not the least, be consistent in your pursuits. Do not disappear after posting for once. Keep your profiles active even if you don’t post content on them very frequently. Stories are a great way to do that as well as connecting with your audience often.
