Instagram has changed a lot during the past, changing from an ‘instant photo-sharing’ app to one of the essential elements in your marketing strategy. Instagram can do more than just uploading pictures and videos. Thanks to its latest features, you can now use Instagram to significantly increase your sales. Instagram Stories is one of those features which you can successfully use to keep your customers engaged. According to recent statistics, most of the biggest brands post on their Instagram accounts about 10 times per week. You don’t need to flood your customers with posts and intrusive photos and videos. An annoyed customer will immediately unfollow your Instagram account unless you offer them relevant information.
On the other hand, even though Instagram stories have great potential, posting a bunch of content without a clear strategy won’t bring you the expected result. If you would think that if you create a longer Instagram story, you will have more success, the reality is totally different. The longer a story is, there will be fewer customers watching it entirely. According to the graph below, you can easily conclude that a story of 20 frames will be more successful than one with 50+ frames.
How Can Instagram Stories Drive More Sales?
Instagram has grown tremendously in the past years and its potential is still not done. There are more than 400 million users using Instagram stories daily which creates an extraordinary opportunity which any business should exploit. You can grow your brand very fast with Instagram stories as you give your followers a different way to get in touch with you. Whilst you may interact with your customers using hashtags for brand promotion and awareness, Instagram stories bring to your audience’s attention the content which they are missing because of social media algorithms. Instead of scrolling their feeds to find your content, it becomes easier for your customers to spend around 1 minute watching a video on your stories.
Instagram stories is definitely a social media feature which deserves your efforts. They are quick, easy-to-produce, and perfect for mobile devices. What is more, it gives you enough flexibility to work on the design and play with the content as you wish. You can either create the content yourself or you can collaborate with professional writers, like those at Trust My Paper, who will come with their expertise and help you have a winning marketing strategy. What is more, Instagram stories gives you the opportunity to be authentic and offer your audience a personalized experience which convinces them to choose your products. Apart from all these reasons, there are also other reasons why you should count on Instagram stories:
- Minimum effort for creation – you don’t need to invest too much time and money in expensive video equipment to create a winning story on Instagram. If you are used to using the best lights and effects for your photos on Instagram, the story feature doesn’t ask too much from you. All you need is a bit of creativity and a quick idea to share with your audience.
- Variety of features – Instagram offers a variety of tools to help you create engaging stories for your audience. For example, you can use drawing tools, place interactive stickers, use filters to highlight certain features of your products and many more.
- Highly-effective opportunity to drive traffic – you can add links to your products directly in your Instagram stories. Therefore, you simplify the life of your customers who don’t need to do anything else but to click on the product tag and finalize the purchase directly on your website.
- An additional method to get discovered – you can successfully add hashtags and geotags to increase your visibility and amplify your reach. Thus, it will become easier for your audience to find your brand and products.
- Swipe-up feature – if you are running an Instagram business account which has more than 10k followers, then you can add this feature to your stories. This is an additional feature which you can use and link out directly from your stories.
How to Use Instagram Stories to Foster Sales
Create a shoppable story
Instagram is constantly improving its customers’ experiences, allowing brands to create shoppable posts and tag their products in posts and stories. Thus, when your user clicks on the tag, they will be immediately redirected to your landing page, giving them the opportunity to finalize the purchase. Some years ago, marketers used to add links to their bios when they wanted to drive more sales on Instagram. Instagram stories create less friction for your customers, allowing them to instantly access your landing page by clicking directly on the link from the story. The process is extremely simple. All you have to do is just tag a product from your catalogue and include it in your stories. Thus, while your customers are watching your story, they will have the option to click on the tag and complete the purchase in just a few steps. With Instagram stories, you can either create a dedicated story for each product or you can use each frame of your story and promote a different product. Either way, you try, the success is guaranteed.
Offer your customers a sneak peek behind your business
Apart from loving your products and services, your customers will also react very well when they are given the opportunity to see ‘what is happening behind the curtains”. This strategy makes your brand more reliable and encourages your audience to recommend you to their friends and family. For example, you can create a story showing the manufacturing process of your products. Thus, you will show your customers what your products are made from, guaranteeing high-quality materials and top-notch technology. Furthermore, you can also present your daily operations, presenting your colleagues and telling a unique story about each one of them. Instagram stories help you come closer to your audience, showing them the human faces behind the brand. Moreover, even though customers are usually extremely curious to find details on how their favourite brand is manufacturing its products, there are not so many businesses who really have the courage to do it. Therefore, you can use this opportunity to stand out from your competition and create a unique image for your business. On the other hand, you should pay attention to not become too transparent. While it is good to show your customers how things are made, you should still keep a touch of mystery.
Stand out from the competition with your stories’ design
Even though Instagram stories have a high potential to improve your engagement rate at the moment, you can increase it even more if you add a touch of design into it. You can either use the stories features or you can use an external app to surprise your customers. Your audience will be more open to watching your stories from the beginning until the end if they see that you have taken care of the design. In addition, you can also use stickers and change the look of your posts. They help you create a certain type of engagement with your customers. Take a look at the list below and keep them in mind the next time you think of which stickers to use on your Instagram stories:
- Product sticker – you will be able to use this sticker only if you receive Instagram approval for product shopping. Once you get this approval, you can place the product sticker to any photo you will post or any Instagram story. Thanks to this sticker, your buyers can finalize the purchase in just two steps. All they have to do is click on the sticker to learn more about the product and then click again to buy it.
- Hashtag sticker – add this sticker in your story and lead your customers to the relevant hashtag page with just one click.
- Poll sticker – this is a very effective method to get in touch with your customers and find what they think about your brand. Therefore, you can write questions with custom answers and encourage your audience to choose one of the options. Your customers can pick one option or the other and are able to see the poll results in real time.
Increase your visibility with geotags and hashtags
You cannot say that you are developing a successful Instagram strategy if your target audience is not able to find your business. You can use geotags to get discovered. Thus, you will be more visible by regularly tagging your location. Thus, you will become relevant for those customers who are checking for businesses like yours around a certain location. When you combine geotags with engaging content, you will see the immediate positive effects on your sales. Hashtags are also very efficient to increase your visibility. When your target audience will search for a certain hashtag, they will receive a list of stories among which they will also find your business as well. What are more, hashtags bring tremendous results in terms of visibility if you own them? For example, you can run a contest and encourage your followers to type a certain comment or post a photo of themselves while also using a certain hashtag. Therefore, once you use that hashtag in your story, you will lead your audience to a list of posts which are strongly connected to your brand.
Repurpose user-generated content
There are many loyal customers who talk about your brand on Instagram, tagging your products in various posts. For example, they might have just bought a new product from your website and they want to show off to their friends by posting a photo with the purchased item. Usually, they upload the image with or without additional stickers and descriptions and tag your brand as well. You will receive an instant notification with the tag. Thus, this is an incredible opportunity which you can use to repurpose user-generated content. In reality, this type of content has the same effect as testimonials. They are a clear proof of your customers’ loyalty and trust in your brand. When you share your customers’ posts, you encourage them to keep posting content like this and talk to their network about your brand. Thus, you will increase your chances to get discovered faster by other customers who will have the same attitude. In addition, you will engage with a group of influencers without having to pay for it.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that Instagram has become a powerful marketing weapon for your business. It is constantly improving its features, responding to their business users needs. However, if you just post content on Instagram, this doesn’t mean that you will get excellent results. In addition, posting too much content will not bring you more customers either. It is enough to upload only one or two images per day to engage with your audience. In addition, Instagram stories give you more flexibility and potential to customize the messages you deliver to your audience. Moreover, you are able to create shoppable stories and promote your products directly. However, all your stories should have a logical progression and deliver relevant content for your audience. If you follow the tips above, you will discover that Instagram stories can be a lot of fun. How do you use Instagram stories for your business?
