Thinking about Instagram Stories?
If you haven’t tried them yet, let me give you a nudge.
While the concept behind IG Stories isn’t exactly groundbreaking – they were copied from Snapchat – the IG Story has quickly become enormously successful.
But why use Instagram Stories?
Let’s take a look at the popularity and success of the Instagram Story, so you can see how they can help your business win the social media marketing game!
We’ll cover:
- What are Instagram Stories?
- How to make an Instagram Story.
- Why should my business use Instagram Stories?
- How to make your Stories last longer.
- How to post Stories automatically.
Little-known tips for better Stories revealed! And 5 fun infographics. Read on…
Why Instagram?
Instagram has been hitting the headlines a lot lately, especially in the marketing community.
It’s no surprise, seeing that the social media giant has more than a billion active users every month.
So, there are indeed a billion reasons to consider using Insta to promote your business.
But how do you get started?
Do you just set up a page, post a few pictures and hope for the best? Or do you look a little deeper into the features available to you and work from there?
One hugely popular feature you need is Instagram Stories.
What are Instagram Stories?
The idea behind Instagram Stories was a simple one. The intention was to allow people to share “moments” of their day quickly and easily.
These could be in the form of a series of photos or videos. Then everything that you put together for your Story would become a slideshow on Instagram.
This stays on your account for twenty-four hours and then disappears.
The coolest part is, IG Stories are featured at the TOP of the home feed. No beating the algorithm required! Simply add another element to your Story and you’re bumped to the front of the line.
In addition, Instagram posts a little reminder in the feed about Stories that are about to expire or that have been the most popular, so your followers have another nudge to watch your Story before it disappears.
Plus, Instagram places a lovely rainbow circle around your profile picture that travels with you wherever you post or comment.
This is a clue to anyone who sees your image that you have a new Story available!
Followers, non-followers, anyone at all can simply tap your IG profile photo, and your Story takes over the screen. Magic!
But that’s not all! You can post your Story to your profile page if you want to keep it. These are called Highlights.
String a bunch of related Story elements together, give it a short, clear name, and it can live on your profile page as long as you like.
Your Story Highlights appear below your bio and above your image gallery. I’ll explain how to create these too!
How Do I Make an Instagram Story?
Creating your Story is simple!
If you like, you can add music, filters, or even doodle on the screen. There’s huge selection of engaging Instagram stickers you can add as well.
It’s a highly flexible way to create content.
Plus, it’s a lot of fun! And maybe even a bit addictive 🙂
1 | Tap the camera icon top left.
2 | Just point and shoot. Or import any photo or video on your camera roll! Tap the icon at bottom left to find the images you want to add.
You can skip to step 9 to post! Or add one or more of these cool Story features.
3 | Swipe left or right to add a filter if desired. Or tap the smiley face at top to find some really amazing ones.
4 | Tap the link icon to link to your website.
5 | Tap the emoji face to add all kinds of cool stickers.
6| Tap the pencil if you wish to write, scribble, or color on your Story.
7 | Tap Aa to add any text. Choose from 6 fonts and many colors.
8 | Swipe any element down and into the trash can to delete it.
9 | Tap “Your Stories” at lower left to add to… your Stories!
You can even create images for Stories outside the app! Be sure to use the right Instagram Story size.
Top 3 Reasons to Use IG Stories
Clients get to know you and your staff better: Why not have your team introduce themselves and say one or two things about themselves?
Show why your process is better: Maybe you only use the freshest ingredients. Let your clients see you buying them or picking them. You don’t have to give away your proprietary secrets but give them a glimpse.
Highlight your product and grow brand awareness: Use this opportunity to show off what your company and product can do for them.
Getting started here is easy and, if it doesn’t go as well as you’d hoped, you will have a clean slate the next day anyway.
What do you really have to lose?
Instagram Stories are here today and gone tomorrow – or you can save them on your profile as long as you like.
Options 🙂
How Long Do Instagram Stories Last?
Story segments disappear from the feed in 24 hours But there are two ways to keep your Story alive!
1 | Add more Story segments.
2 | Curate your best Stories into Highlights.
Let’s cover these now.
Can I Post Instagram Stories Automatically?
So you want to keep your Story going by adding more segments.
How will you remember, with all you’ve got on your plate? It’s easy with Tailwind!
Just schedule as many segments as you like ahead of time – a week’s worth would free your mind 🙂
While Instagram won’t allow you to Auto Post to your Story, you can use SMS Notification or iOS Notification to remind you to post.
And you can use Tailwind to Auto Post to the post feed – 100% approved by Instagram!
Have an image for your Story on desktop? Schedule it in Tailwind for the time you’d like to publish. Be sure to set it as an SMS Notification or iOS Notification, as you can’t Auto Post to Stories.
If you have the image or video for your Story on your phone, follow these steps:
- Schedule an image (a ‘dummy’ reminder post) for the time you’d like to publish your Story to Instagram as a notification through Tailwind.
- When you get your reminder from Tailwind that it’s time to post, tap ‘Post to Instagram.’ This will open the Instagram app and the image you scheduled will save to your photo library.
- In Instagram, choose to post to your Story and then tap the ‘X’ in the top left corner.
- Next, start a new post using the ‘+’ button at the bottom of your screen. You can either select the saved image, or add other images or videos to post to your Story.
This way you won’t forget when it’s time to post, and be able to quickly post to your Story.
Don’t forget to schedule an Instagram post for the feed alerting people to your Story. This one can go on Auto Post a few minutes later. It’s a can’t-miss combo!
You can try Tailwind for Instagram free!
• • • Click here to try Tailwind for Instagram Forever FREE Plan • • •
Disclosure: If you later purchase a plan, I’ll make a referral fee, at no cost to you.
How to Make Instagram Story Highlights
Save your best Stories!
Repurpose your content and express your brand identity by grouping Stories you’ve shared into Highlights, and featuring them on your profile.
Stories Highlights appear below your bio.
1 | To create a Highlight, tap the “New” circle at the far left.
2 | Choose any Story segments from your archive. Stick to a theme.
3 | Select an eye-catching cover image for your Highlight.
4 | Give it a clear and concise name. A maximum of 11–13 characters and spaces will show.
Once you’re done, your Highlight will appear as a circle on your profile that plays as a full-screen Story when someone taps it.
That tapped Story will lead right into the one after it, and so on, until the user closes the Story screen.
Highlights stay on your profile until you remove them, and you can have as many Highlights as you’d like.
To edit or remove a Highlight, just tap and hold that Highlight on your profile.
You can choose to:
- Delete Highlight.
- Edit Highlight.
- Send to… another user.
- Or Copy Highlight Link.
How to Get More Engagement on Stories
To maximize your Story’s effectiveness, try these tips:
→ Geotags increase your reach by including you in the relevant Stories for that area.
→ Links have been shown to get up to 25% follow-through to your site or landing page. So use them!
→ Long videos can be cut into shorter segments with an app like CutStory.
→ “Takeovers” by employees or influencers generate high levels of engagement.
→ Polls collect feedback or simply start a conversation.
Instagram Stories vs Posts
Should you use Stories or posts?
You should absolutely use both, and use them in tandem!
You can put a live link in a Story – you can’t do that in a post!
1 | Have your post and Story prepared.
2 | Post your Story. Don’t forget to include the link.
3 | Now post to the feed and tell people to check out your Story and click the link for more info.
Make it easy on yourself and schedule them both ahead of time in Tailwind.
Instagram Stories Stats
Need more convincing?
500 million users now use Instagram Stories every day as per the information from 99firms.com. This is over 300% growth rate in under three years.
This feature is becoming more and more popular and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
More IG Stories stats from 99firms (sources cited on their site):
- 1 in 4 Millennials and Gen Z-ers look for Stories of the products and services they want to buy.
- 15%–25% of people swipe up on a link in branded Stories.
- One-third of the most-viewed Instagram Stories are from businesses.
- 36% of businesses use Instagram Stories for product promotion.
- 59% of brands link Instagram Stories to a shoppable page.
- The average posting frequency for IG Stories is 2.3 posts per week.
- Instagram Stories accounts for 34% of Instagram’s sponsored content.
Unfortunately, Instagram hasn’t shared new data since December 2019. But you can bet even more people are using Stories now!
Yikes! How can you stand out in that hot mess?
The answer is Stories!
Why Should My Business Use Instagram Stories?
The simple answer is because they are effective.
Stories have a natural progression – a beginning, middle, and end. This logical series of events is satisfying for the viewer because it makes sense to them.
Look at it this way. My features are:
- Red
- Branded
- Bouncy
I’ll bet you’re wondering what’s going on!
What if I changed that up a bit and said, “The features of our balls are red, branded and bouncy.” Makes a lot more sense, doesn’t it?
Now, what if I decided to take a video of people bouncing the red, branded balls and posted that.
The video tells the story without the need to use words. There would be no worrying about people misunderstanding the language, phraseology, etc.
You could act as a storyteller for a variety of different reasons. Businesses globally have found many different ways to use this feature.
Give them a try!
Conclusion
We covered a lot:
- What are Instagram Stories?
- How to make an Instagram Story.
- Why should my business use Instagram Stories?
- How to make your Stories last longer.
- How to post Stories automatically.
Check for the latest to learn if you can see who screenshotted your Instagram Story.
Don’t forget to Pin the infographic below, kindly provided by 99firms.
Be sure to scroll down and see the second one from Headway Capital for many more useful tips and hacks! I know you’ll want to Pin that one too.
And check out how easily you can manage your Stories with Tailwind!
• • • Click here to try Tailwind for Instagram FREE Forever plan • • •
Disclosure: If you later purchase a plan, I’ll make a referral fee, at no cost to you.
Instagram Stories are a great way to get more eyes on your account.
Want more?
Learn how to grow your Instagram followers 11 ways!
Marissa says
As a business account, should I react to my followers stories?
Louise Myers says
It’s up to you, but it’s another way to connect with them.
Shubham kaushik says
hi Louise
i agree with you as insta stories are very helpful to us in maintaining our insta family …..by adopting above mentioned ways we can easily create a best insta story
Mindy Jaffar says
Hi Louise! Great article and exactly what I was looking for. I’m studying Narrative Studies at ASU and I’m giving a presentation on social media, particularly IG, and it’s stories. Based on Aristotles Theory that every story has a beginning, middle, and end, do IG stories offer that in its entirety or does the viewer create the conclusion of that person’s life or business? You are the only one that mentions IG stories having a beginning, middle, and end. Would love to hear more about how you feel it offers that.
Louise Myers says
If an IGer can post Story segments that actually do tell a story (beginning, middle, and end), then their audience will want to come back for more!
fishfoot says
was a good read and yeah the story feature does keep the engagement alive and all that. oddly view more stories than posts at times so i can see how it all could work. so thanks for all the info.
Louise Myers says
IG Stories are definitely popular!
Alisa m Gannon says
Ok. If you were posting about a new blog post would you do a story plus a regular post?
Louise Myers says
For sure, also for a new product or sale. Do both!
Al says
I have always enjoyed scrolling through people’s photos on ITG but I’ve never been too wowed by what people post in their stories. It seems to be a lot of text that I don’t read and odd selfies or videos of random things that don’t interest me. Even the people/brands with great feeds tend to have pretty lame stories!
Louise Myers says
They could do better for sure. So many good features!
pat says
I agree. I don’t watch stories. They’re a waste of time, and I don’t like the idea that people can see that I’ve been watching them. Besides, I don’t get why they disappear in 24 hours. If I wanted that, I’d use Snapchat!, I‘m all for Instagram feeds!
Dawn Abraham says
Yes this is a great blog. I’m glad you mentioned it today on my post. I was thinking about using this feature more. I have Some new ideas now from this excellent post. Thanks for sharing this.
Louise Myers says
Dawn, it’s fantastic to see you here! Stories are so much fun and I could spend hours on them if I had the time lol. Enjoy!
Moss Clement says
Hi Louise,
Interesting read your have here. In fact, I will call it an ultimate guide for using Instagram Stories. Instagram Stories is a great way to keep your presence alive on the platform. Although your stories disappear in 24 hrs, the more stories you post, the better and more you’re increasing your visibility.
Your tutorial is amazing as I have learned a some ropes on here. Your infographic is remarkable. Now you got me inspired!
Shared it already on social.
Louise Myers says
Thanks so much, Moss. Glad it was helpful!
Punit says
Hey Louise,
I can’t agree more with you. Instagram stories are the real game now. Loved the infographics!
Have a great day!
Regards,
Punit
Louise Myers says
Thanks Punit