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Instagram Stories are a powerful tool for engaging with your audience, allowing brands to stay in front of their followers throughout the day without boring them.
In order to create high-quality content, you need to learn how to create visually pleasing stories with an interesting idea, planned in advance.
In this article, we'll share ideas for Instagram stories that will help you grow your business in 2024.
What are Instagram stories?
Instagram Stories are posts that automatically disappear after 24 hours. It's a quick way to share updates with your followers without having to create a full post. Stories appear in a horizontal format above your feed and can be viewed by swiping left or right. You can pause a story by tapping on the screen and resume it by lifting your finger. You can also express your reaction to a story by swiping up or tapping the heart icon.
Why should brands use Instagram stories?
Stories allow brands to showcase their human side, share behind-the-scenes footage, and build a more personal connection with their audience.
Stories can be used to promote products and services, as well as to run contests and giveaways. This can lead to a significant increase in sales and conversions.
Stories allow brands to get feedback from their audience on new products, services, and ideas. This can help them better understand their customers' needs and improve their products.
Stories disappear after 24 hours, making them an ideal tool for creating a sense of urgency and encouraging followers to take action.
How often should you post Instagram stories?
The optimal frequency of posting stories on Instagram depends on your goal and audience. However, research shows that 10-12 stories per day yields the best results.
Why 10-12?
This number allows you to keep your followers' attention without overwhelming them with content.
It gives you enough space to showcase your brand or product.
This increases the chances that your stories will be seen, as the Instagram algorithm prioritises active users.
Of course, this is just a general recommendation. You may need more or less stories depending on your situation.
What is the time limit for Instagram stories?
Instagram Stories automatically disappear from your profile after 24 hours. Each story can be up to 60 seconds long.
Instagram story ideas
Polls and surveys
Polls and surveys are a great way to make your Instagram stories more interactive and engaging for your audience. You can use them to get feedback on your products or services, learn more about your audience, or just have fun.
Here are some ideas for polls and surveys that you can use in your stories:
Ask your audience what they think about your latest post. It could be anything from a new product you've launched to your new look.
Conduct a survey to learn more about your audience. You can ask them about their age, location, interests, etc.
Create a quiz to test your audience's knowledge of your topic.
Conduct research to get feedback on your product or service.
Regardless of what type of survey or research you choose, it is important that it is interesting and relevant to your audience. You should also make sure that the survey results are easy to read and understand.
Here are some tips for creating successful surveys and research:
Formulate a clear and concise question.
Offer clear and understandable answer options.
Use visuals to make your surveys more appealing.
Product teasers
Such stories can be used to prepare the audience for the launch of a new product or service. This approach helps to attract the audience's attention, increase interest and make the product launch more memorable and successful.
How to do it?
Show only a fragment of the product, its silhouette or detail, leaving room for the imagination.
Use music, colours and visuals to emphasise the emotions and values of the product.
Captivate the viewer with a short story related to the product, its creation or use.
Stir up curiosity by offering to guess what the product is or what its features are.
Hold a contest to encourage audience participation.
Product teasers are:
An effective marketing tool: Creates excitement, builds anticipation and drives sales.
A way to connect emotionally: Brings you closer to your audience, making your brand more appealing.
An opportunity to showcase creativity: Let your imagination run wild to create original and engaging content.
Event highlights
Your goal is to share with your followers the most interesting and important things you learned at the event.
Post short videos and photos of the most interesting moments of the event, share quotes from speakers or participants that you found interesting, ask questions to engage your followers in discussion, conduct a poll to find out what your followers think about a particular topic, tell a story about how you felt about the event, what you learned or who you met, live stream the event to give your followers a chance to feel like they are part of it, show your followers what goes on behind the scenes.
Customer FAQs
Collect all the most frequently asked questions from your customers and answer them in the format of interesting Instagram stories.
First of all, it saves time because instead of answering the same questions all the time, you can answer them once in a story format. It also increases loyalty to your brand, as customers appreciate it when you save them time and give them all the information they need in an accessible format. This demonstrates that you care about them and want to make their experience as comfortable as possible.
Answering the most frequently asked questions can also help you understand your audience better, by analysing the questions they ask, you can better understand their needs and expectations. This will help you improve your product, marketing strategy, and customer service.
Giveaways and contests
Instagram giveaways and contests are a powerful tool for growing your audience, increasing engagement and reach. They give users an incentive to engage with your content by encouraging them to follow your account, like and comment on your posts, and share them with their friends. This leads to a significant increase in new subscribers who are genuinely interested in your topic.
In addition, contests generate buzz and activity around your account, making it more visible in the Instagram feed and search. This, in turn, leads to an increase in the reach of your posts and gives you a chance to attract new followers who did not participate in the contest.
It's important to organise the contest properly, clearly state the rules and conditions of participation, and choose an attractive prize that will be of interest to your target audience.
This way, you can use contests to grow your Instagram account to the fullest extent possible.
The new product launch
With the help of intriguing teasers and announcements, you can pique your subscribers' curiosity about a new product, making them look forward to its release.
Industry news and updates
By posting industry news and updates, you can demonstrate your awareness of the latest trends and developments. This can help you position yourself as a thought leader in your industry and gain the trust of your followers.
Here are some tips for posting industry news and updates on Instagram stories:
Choose interesting and relevant news: Don't post everything you see. Focus on news that is of interest to your target audience.
Use visuals: Add images or videos to your stories to make them more engaging.
Write short and clear captions: People don't want to read long texts on Instagram stories.
Use hashtags: Hashtags can help you reach a wider audience.
Ask questions: Encourage your followers to engage in discussion by asking them questions about the news you post.
Product unboxing
Unboxing a new product can give followers the feeling of being among the first to see it. This can create a sense of exclusivity and increase the value of your brand. It also gives a sense of presence and emotion, which makes the content more engaging.
Before and after
People perceive visual information better than textual information. Before-and-after stories give you the opportunity to clearly demonstrate the changes that have taken place with your product or service. Before-and-after stories can be used to demonstrate results in any area, be it weight loss, renovation, training, creativity, or any other project.
Behind-the-scenes
Behind-the-scenes stories provide a glimpse behind the scenes of your brand, showing people how you work and what makes you unique. This can help to create a sense of trust and transparency, which in turn can lead to better brand perception and customer loyalty.
Share your blog content
When you share a link to a blog post on Instagram, you give your followers on that social network the opportunity to learn about it and follow the link to read it. This can lead to a significant increase in traffic to your blog, which in turn can lead to more leads and sales.
Countdowns to special events
By creating a sense of anticipation, you can keep your audience interested and push them to take action. This could be booking tickets, registering for an event, or simply sharing information about it. You can use a countdown to encourage people to sign up for your newsletter or give you their contact information to get more information about the event.
Business goals
Sharing your goals with your audience is a sign of transparency. It can help you build trust with your followers because they understand what you're aiming for. When people know your goals, they can feel more engaged with your brand.
Introduce your team
People tend to sympathise more with brands that have a human face. By showing off its team, a brand can motivate followers to learn more about the people who make it what it is.
Also, by featuring their team, a brand can demonstrate what it's like to work for the company. This can help attract talented people who are looking for a job in a dynamic and interesting team.
Write a thank you for your followers
A brand should thank its followers for many reasons. First, it's just the polite and sincere thing to do. Followers are people who have shown an interest in the brand, its products or services, and therefore they deserve to be thanked for their support. Secondly, by thanking their followers, a brand can strengthen their connection with them, show that they value their loyalty, and motivate them to engage further. This can lead to more sales, increased brand awareness, and a better reputation.
Conclusion
Stories on Instagram are an effective tool for engaging with the audience, allowing brands to stay in the field of view of their followers throughout the day. They allow you to showcase the "human" side of your brand, share behind-the-scenes information, and establish a more personal connection with your audience.
There are a variety of Instagram Stories ideas that can help grow your business in 2024, including: polls and surveys, product teasers, event coverage, answers to frequently asked questions, giveaways and contests, new product reviews, industry news coverage, before-and-after demonstrations, behind-the-scenes work, publishing blog content, creating a countdown to special events, publishing business goals, and introducing your team.
The key benefits of using such ideas for Instagram Stories are: the ability to create a sense of urgency and encourage followers to take action, increase sales and conversions, get feedback from the audience, attract new followers, and increase brand reach and awareness.
The article provides specific advice on how to effectively create and use Instagram Stories, emphasising the importance of visual appeal, brevity and relevance of content to the target audience.