Instagram is one of the famous social media which is growing rapidly. As for 2021, Instagram has more than 500 million active users on a global level.
Also, the platform ranked at 6th most popular social media by the users.
Well in a world where people constantly reject the ads, the Instagram story is a helpful tool that is helping sellers to get the new customer without irritating them.
Instagram launched stories in August 2016, and it becomes one of the most used features on the platform.
Instagram stories help in increasing reach, boosting engagement, and many different things.
As for the sellers, it’s a powerful tool to get more customers. If you are looking for a way to get that too, here is how you can do it.
Why Use Instagram Stories For Your Brand?
No doubt Instagram is helpful for making your brand more visible to your audience.
But if you are still considering using this feature to promote your business, here are a few reasons that can help in deciding :
It Easier To Promote Products
Instagram stories are helpful if you are launching new products, features or promoting recent updates.
You can share with your audience what you are doing and post the sneak peaks.
Image source: Quora
The best part of using Instagram stories is that you don’t have to be professional about it. It can be fun, interesting, and original.
Drive Traffics To The Website
You can add the links and share them in your stories. This is also good for repurposing the content from your website.
Invite people to read and update with what you are planning to post.
You can engage the audience by asking their preferences and what they would like to read.
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Redirect the new customers to your website, so they can understand more about your brand and connect with it.
Get The Feedbacks
Without feedback, it’s hard to keep the customers in your long run.
For the customers, they don’t like when they feel they are not important or nobody is here to listen to them.
Instagram stories can help in eliminating the feeling.
Image source: Later
You can put stories about your recent products, activities, and promotions. Ask your customer to share their opinions.
You can do the poll, add stickers or sliders to make it more fun and interactive.
Getting More Leads
In the end, you are looking for customers so you can get more sales. This is why you can use the stories to nurture the leads.
With this, you can convert the visitors to your potential leads.
However, for that, you are going to need powerful content and a solid reason why they should share their information with you.
What Are The Different Types Of Instagram Stories That You Can Use?
There are different types that you can consider for Instagram stories.
Not just it can help you in reaching new customers but with these different types of Instagram stories, you can make the content more engaging and interesting to hold their attention.
Here are some types of Instagram stories for you to know.
Make How to And Tutorial Stories
This type of Instagram story is about making step by step tutorial content for your brand.
There are different brands that use this for sharing the recipe and making beauty tutorials.
You can make how-to tutorials by telling your customers how to use different features and for highlighting the purpose.
Image source: SmartInsights
Also, you can make an Instagram story if you are launching a new product or feature.
Make stories about encouraging the features and share it on Instagram. By this, you will get the user content that you can share on your stories as well.
Share Behind The Scene
One of the best things about using Instagram stories is you don’t need big or polished productions.
Instagram stories allow you to make your content the way you want.
You can use this behind the scenes of how you make the product or how your brand works.
Image source: Sproutsocial
This makes your new customers feel like they are also so part of the whole process.
User-Generated Content or UGC
You can share the content of your followers on Instagram and put it on your Instagram stories.
This type of story is also helpful to use shout out from your followers on Instagram without wasting it.
Special Announcement And Time-Sensitive Offers
Instagram stories can be helpful for promos, offers and promotions.
To get the attention of your customers you can use stories to highlight sales or deals.
Image source: Later
If there is any kind of announcement that you want your new customers to see, you can post it on your stories.
To make sure that they notice you can add this story to your highlights.
Ways To Take Leverage of Instagram Stories To Find More Customers
The stories feature has its benefits that are helping individuals or sellers to grow their presence on Instagram.
For a small business, it’s helpful to build their brand and establish.
It boosts brand awareness, conversions and gets more engagement.
Most of the brands are using Instagram stories to build their customer base. Here are some listed ways that can help you too.
Use The Story Highlight Feature
One of the drawbacks of posting stories on Instagram is, it will be removed after 24 hours.
But Instagram solved that problem too by offering a story highlight feature.
You can use the story highlight to make it accessible at any time. You just have to ‘ add to highlight’ when posting or you can do it later too.
Image source: Later
It will be saved as highlights and shown on the main page of your account.
With the help of Instagram, you can curate multiple stories, and it will help the audience to watch your stories at their convenience.
You can make the content evergreen.
By highlighting your stories to your Instagram, you can save the content that you want your new customers to see.
You can save different highlights dividing them into small categories. For example, you can create a highlight which contains behind the scenes of your shop.
Or you can use it for highlighting the events or interviews to your Instagram stories.
Do Exciting Announcements
Instagram stories are one of the efficient tools which can help in getting more attention to your content.
You can use this for announcing your new products, staff members, or even do general updates.
Add More Videos To Stories
The craze for video format content increased on such a level that Instagram had to introduce IGTV, which is another powerful tool for the business.
Coming back to Instagram stories, you can post video content as you can record it or do live.
Image source: Leadquizzes
Since Instagram has millions of active users on a daily basis, it gets a huge amount of content uploaded too.
In this scenario, it’s easy for your content to be lost, however, using Live videos can help you to stand out.
This helps you in getting more visibility and Instagram promotes real-time content on their platform.
You can connect with new customers and get more reach.
However, you can choose pre-recorded videos for showcasing the qualities of your product.
You can also make your videos about the manufacturing process and final look which gives an interesting perspective to new buyers.
Add More Effective Hashtags
One of the ways that can help you in getting new customers is hashtags.
By using this, your content gets more visible to others and it targets a wider audience.
Hashtags are also recommended for various reasons such as:
- You can tag a location to your Instagram story and it will help the new customers to find you much easier.
- You can tag yourself in stories, this helps in getting more users and makes them simple to find your profile.
- Lots of sellers use hashtags for tagging influencers and others, this helps in targeting a wider audience. However, make sure you are tagging the relevant people.
Customization in hashtags is also there, it helps in connecting you to the larger community on Instagram.
Image source: sproutsocial
Also, it helps in getting the views and reach that your Instagram stories deserve. But using hashtags can be tricky for lots of people.
Share More About You To New Customers
Targeting new customers is a hassle especially when it comes to building trust. However, you can use Instagram stories to build a connection.
When a new customer decides to purchase something, the first thing they want to know is the seller. It’s important for understanding if you have credibility and can they invest or not.
Image source: Oberlo
Using Instagram stories, you can share about yourself as a seller as well as individuals.
You can share the idea behind the products, what inspired you, and the journey.
You can invite the new customers as a member of your family. This will help in creating a friendly and trustworthy environment for them.
Take Leverage By Adding Influencers
There is no doubt that influencer marketing is one of the powerful ways to promote the brand.
Image source: Mediakix
However, it also brings the opportunity to target a new audience, and if you play your cards well, you can get the new buyers without much hassle.
There are basic ways that you can choose :
- Either ask the influencer to share the video or photos of your product as their content and share it.
- Or you can share their photos or videos of using the products and tagging them in your Instagram stories.
Get The Content Of Users
User-generated content is also a great way to get more people. This means you can use the content of the audience by using permission and giving credit on your Instagram stories.
Image source: Later
Either this can be free and on goodwill or you can choose to give the incentives for this.
By both ways, you are getting the chance to connect with more people. Also, it saves your time as well as effort to create the content.
Show What Makes Your Brand Different
When new customers look for the brands to shop, they look for reasons and what extra or different they are going to get.
The comparisons help them to pick the best deal that checks all the requirement boxes.
As a brand, you can use Instagram stories to showcase what and why they should pick you.
Image source: business2community
The more engaging your stories are, the better response you will get, Use Instagram stories to tell what makes your products as well as brands fun.
Highlight things that your customers are looking for.
Interact With Your New Audience
Image source: Later
Instagram stories have different interaction features that help you in connecting with the new audience.
You can use :
- Hashtags
- Polls
- Gifs
- Tags
- Stickers
And this will help your Instagram stories be more engaging. However, you will require a little bit of freshness and creativity.
Frequently Asked Questions ( FAQs)
How many stories to post on Instagram?
The optimal number for sharing the stories is 5 per day. Well, the exit happens after 3 stories, so it’s important to hold the attention from the beginning.
When you can post Instagram stories?
There are no specific hours as the overall life of a story is 24 hours if you are not adding it to the highlight.
What to make sure of when posting stories on Instagram?
Make sure you have an overall idea of what you are sharing the stories. Keep it transparent and interactive along with interesting as well as engaging.
