Chances are you have a brand up and running and you have an Instagram account and plan on marketing your brand. The internet has certainly eased the process of finding your target audience. However, there is also a rise in competition, which means that you will have to compete by posting content and promoting your brand relentlessly.
You need to create engaging content and optimize it to yield new leads regularly and increase your conversions to build your brand. While posting a lot of content on your news feed might tempt you, you risk spamming your audience. The alternative is to opt for another way to post content – Instagram stories.
Instagram stories in a nutshell
Instagram stories are known to be one of Instagram’s most useful features. It allows content creators to post content that lasts temporarily – 24 hours.
You can expect your followers to check out your story and reply to it. Instagram stories are ideal since they are temporary. In other words, you can post as much content as you want without worrying about spamming someone, as opposed to posting content on your Instagram feed. Instagram stories have a myriad of benefits. Here are some of them:
- You may conduct polls, ask questions, get replies, and take their feedback.
- You can reply to comments and make content based on the comments and questions you get.
- It becomes easy to give your followers a snippet of what your life looks like and what they can expect from your side.
- You could post various types of promotional content, including images, text, video, to boost your brand awareness.
Things about Instagram Stories you should keep in mind
As you use Instagram stories to promote your brand, you need to consider various factors like increasing engagement, improving brand recognition, maximizing sales and conversions, and improving communication with your audience.
- You can improve your brand recognition substantially by posting content regularly. This content could include pictures, videos, GIFs, and so on. Let people know about your brand and niche, optimize your Instagram posts to maximize your engagement, and partner with other Instagram influencers.
- Here’s another thing you can do to boost your engagement – conducting polls and asking questions to engage your audience. You should also reply to their comments, address their concerns, and interact with them on your live stream, conduct giveaways, and so o.
- Another thing you can do is putting out an Instagram story to promote a product that you think your audience will benefit from. If you capture your follower’s interest, make sure you capitalize on that and close the deal. Also, add a purchase link to the swipe up feature and encourage them to check it out.
- Communication does not only refer to talking to your audience and encouraging them to purchase your products and services. It also involves showing them that you care about them and include them in your community. If you are a legitimate brand, be sure to let your followers know you care about them. As mentioned, you can do this by replying to their comments and direct messages, re-posting their posts when they tag you in them, giving them a shout-out on your stories and posts, ensuring prompt customer service, etc. At the end of the day, you need to have your customer service in check.
What can you do to create Instagram stories for effective marketing?
Here are a few of many things you should remember to post engaging Instagram stories:
Roll out content regularly
You need content. And lots of it. You can use the create mode and pair it with a template. Be sure to add text, and type questions, or hold a poll. Figure out what you want and put out a story accordingly.
In the normal mode, you can upload an image, video, or capture one using your camera. You may also add a GIF.
One of Instagram’s stand-out features is the option to go live. This feature is incredibly powerful and allows you to correspond with your followers in real-time. After you finish streaming, you may save the session, take snippets, and upload it to promote the live session.
Smart marketing
As vital as the content is, marketing is key. Marketing your content makes all the difference. If you are new and need a head start, consider hiring an Instagram growth company.
You have to take out the time to look for the right influencers and collaborators, put out posts, tag them, and hopefully get them to share them on their stories and news feeds. You may also have to DM them to get your content out there. If you get this done, you can expose your brand to a new audience.
Besides this, you will want to use hashtags for Instagram marketing. Millions of users include hashtags in their posts. They also follow hashtags like they follow profiles. You can include commonly used hashtags in your post and get people who follow those hashtags to find your posts.
Pair this with your own hashtags that are specific to your products, services, and brand.
Relentless promotion
You need to promote your brand relentlessly. A part of this is getting their brand’s Instagram verification done. This can make a difference but promoting your brand through content is, by far, the most effective way to build brand awareness.
You can use targeted advertising to reach new audiences. However, you need to figure out your goals, your target audience, and get your content in place.
