Did you know that over 500 million people use Instagram Stories daily?
In addition, of the more than 1 billion monthly active Instagram accounts, 90% follow a business on the platform.
If your brand has yet to start using Instagram Stories, now is the time.
But Instagram Stories only allow your content to be visible to your audience for 24 hours.
So, why should you bother if the content won’t last long?
Because Stories help you consistently communicate with your audience. With Instagram Stories, you can increase your engagement. You can also create inspiring and creative content that keeps your audience craving for more.
So, how does this help you promote your business?
Through this post, I’ll give you an idea of how you can promote your business using Stories. Here are some ways through which you can leverage them:
Reasons Why Instagram Stories Can Be Helpful for Your Brand
Here’s how Instagram Stories can help you promote your business on the platform.
1. Instagram Stories Features Help Increase Engagement
Instagram Stories come with a multitude of features. These features allow you to add context to your content. They include face filters, colored backgrounds, text, location stickers, hashtag stickers, GIFs, polls, and others.
Many of these stickers can push your audience to engage with your Stories. The audience can interact with them with ease.
So how does this engagement help you promote your brand?
Let’s take a closer look…
For instance, let’s say you use the question sticker:
With it, you can answer questions from your target audience and inform them about your brand and the products you offer. They are also great when you want to share tips and advice on product use.
Another way would be by using Instagram Story polls. They can help you find out what product your audience likes most and what improvements they would like to see.
Additionally, polls allow you to hear directly from your audience. You can use them to understand their preferences, and they, in turn, will feel more connected to your brand.
When you implement their preferences, you’ll be able to deliver solid customer experiences.
M.Gemi does Instagram Story polls in which they ask their audience’s opinion on products they sell. This helps them improve their customer experience.
How is this?
They get to know what their audience prefers and can tailor their shoes to meet the customer’s needs. They satisfy the customer while, at the same time, contribute to the success of their business.
Image via Instagram
You can also use these features to drive the audience to your website.
For example, let’s say you have long-form content on your blog. You can use Instagram Stories to direct traffic to your site to read the content.
A brand that does this exceptionally well is the MIT Technology Review. They create short, bite-sized content that their audience can understand in their Stories. The audience can then “Swipe up” or “Read more” to read the comprehensive articles on the website.
Image via Instagram
2. Instagram Stories Help You Share Your Brand Story
Is your company launching a new product? Create a Story around it.
Are you hosting an office event? Upload videos of it on Stories.
Use Stories to tell your company’s story. Use them to show your brand in action and activities that go on behind the scenes.
How do you make the products they love? How do employees interact at work? Use Stories to tell it all to your audience.
You can also use them to showcase a corporate social responsibility (CSR) event your employees took part in or an event they attended.
America’s Test Kitchen shows behind the scenes footage of their employees at work regularly on Instagram. They also show the ingredients and keep audiences engaged by asking them to stay tuned for upcoming content.
Image via Instagram
3. Instagram Story Ads Help Promote Your Brand
You can also place your ads in Instagram Stories with specific objectives. These include Video Views, Reach, Traffic, Lead Generation, Conversions, Brand Awareness, and App Installs.
They also offer different calls-to-action to drive your audience to act. You can use Buy Tickets, Book Now, Apply Now, Shop Now, Learn More, and others.
Your Story ad objective will depend on what kind of action you want to drive from your audience. Doing this allows Instagram to show your ads to consumers within your selected target audience.
Choosing the right objective for your Instagram Story ads can, therefore, make a huge difference. The 15-second video, static image, or slide ads, shown in-between Stories, make it easy for the audience to watch without skipping too.
Yoga International is one of the brands that is using Instagram Story ads to promote their business. They used Instagram Story poll ads and, in the process, registered 3,510 potential members for free trial memberships.
Image via Instagram
4. Instagram Stories Make Your Brand Discoverable
Leveraging hashtags and location tags on Instagram Stories can help you increase your visibility.
You can use hashtags that define your brand or generate hashtags using tools and use them to showcase what your product does. Using location tags also gets the attention of audiences living near your brand.
When you search for any hashtag or location, Instagram Stories with these tags appear at the top left corner of the search results. As a result, people will be able to discover your brand from them even if they’re not following you.
Image via Instagram
5. Instagram Stories Increase Your Brand Visibility
Hashtags and location tags can help you increase brand visibility. But there are other ways to promote your brand and increase visibility from Stories too.
For example, you can encourage your audience to create Stories and use your branded hashtags. This can help you promote your brand and increase its visibility.
Samsung is one such brand that’s leveraging customer content on Instagram Stories to increase its visibility. They encourage their audience to use the #withGalaxy hashtag to share their creations. These are then featured in their Story feeds.
Image via Instagram
You can also use Highlights to save your essential Stories and hang on to them for more than 24 hours. Highlights are a great way to promote your brand since they can help your audience see your Stories, even after they’ve expired.
You can use them to direct your audience to the most interesting or successful content from your Stories. They are also great for showcasing your products, marketing your business, and driving traffic to your website.
Note how Fitbit has posted Highlights with their success stories.
Image via Instagram
But that’s not all.
Instagram Story takeovers can also help you promote your brand. By collaborating with an influencer or employee, you can increase your visibility and reach new audiences.
A good example of this is Fenty Beauty, with their Fenty Family Takeovers on Instagram Stories. The takeovers feature makeup artists and beauty influencers using Fenty products. Fenty Beauty partners with influencers who align with their brand and are knowledgeable about beauty products.
The brand then publishes tips and suggestions shared on these Instagram Stories on their YouTube channel.
Image via YouTube
Are You Ready to Promote Your Brand with Instagram Stories?
Instagram Stories can help you tell your brand story. You can use them to increase visibility, promote your products, and increase traffic to your site.
By sharing engaging photos and videos of your company, you can grow your audience and sales. Use Instagram Stories to share product photos and answer audience questions.
Engage your audience and ensure that you provide value so that they keep coming back for more. Use them to understand what your audience wants and personalize your offerings accordingly.
Do you have any questions about using Instagram Stories to promote your brand or any tips to share? Please share them with us in the comment section below.
About the Author: Gaurav Sharma is the Founder of Attrock, a digital marketing company. He works closely with top marketing influencers and has helped numerous brands, ecommerce firms, and SaaS companies grow. He is also a certified Google Analytics and Google Adwords specialist and regularly contributes to reputable publications like HuffPost, TechCrunch, and many more.