You may think of Instagram as a social media account that teenagers and young adults use to post pictures about their lives and what they are doing. However, Instagram is so much more than that.
Instagram has created a platform where businesses are now making sales and advertising. Now you may think, I have a website, we have a few advertisements out there, and we are doing pretty well as a company, so why do I need to make an Instagram and post stories?
Instagram has about 800 million monthly users and with that many people using Instagram, your product is going to be seen by people who did not even know your company existed. While posting on your Instagram page and creating interactive and inviting stories is good, having a strategy behind the content that you are posting to your Instagram stories will benefit your company so much more in the long run.
Instagram stories are constantly refreshing at the top of an Instagram user’s feed. So, instead of posting a picture every few hours and having it get lost in the feed of your followers, posting a Instagram story won’t get lost and is much easier to access.
So what is an Instagram story and why is it important for my business?
Instagram, in 2017, wrote a blog about businesses stating “one in five organic stories from businesses get a direct message and that over 50% of businesses on Instagram produce Instagram stories.” Think of how much those stats have gone up since 2017. If you don’t have an Instagram or have one but are not creating Instagram stories yet, start now because you are missing out on a much larger audience.
The purpose of Instagram stories, specifically for businesses, are that they have the ability to get content on the platform that may not be as appropriate for your website. A big thing that is important about Instagram stories is that you’ll find people who want to engage with your company. That is why the poll option tool, a Q&A option, or the ability to share new content or take live videos helps attract potential customers’ eyes.
Our team’s favorite tool for Instagram stories is the poll option because you can get others’ opinions on your content, your company, or just questions in general.
Having Instagram stories is highly important because it allows companies to raise brand awareness and get potential customers. You have to target what your audience likes first. Purpose before profit. There are many benefits that Instagram stories do to raise brand awareness.
First, through using hashtags and geotags you will allow users to see your posts by searching related things they are interested in. When searching hashtags, you can see which ones are the most popular and if you use those, you could reach a larger audience. Also, for businesses, by adding the location of your business to a post, it allows your story to be put on the Explore feed in the location your business is in.
Second, when you post Instagram stories, use storytelling techniques because it will either act as an advertisement or will give you the chance to show what is going on at the site of operation. Using storytelling techniques gives you the opportunity to be creative and promote your business in a free way and the way you envision it.
Third, Instagram stories has a tool which allows you to create polls. As a business you can make a question and either leave the answering open ended or customize the answer into choices which your audience can chose answers to. This feature on Instagram gives you statistics of the answers from your followers. You can either do consumer research with demographics, make engagement with followers, audience preferences, and so much more.
Lastly, you can invest in sponsored Instagram stories. Sponsored Instagram stories automatically appear on your targeted audience story feed. They will pop up in between of the stories of the accounts they follow. This is a better approach because you can reach the audience that doesn’t already follow you.
Instagram stories may sound like extra work that you have to do that won’t work, but it will give your business many more opportunities to reach a larger audience and get potential customers.