Having over a billion monthly users and being the third most popular social media platform behind Facebook and YouTube, Instagram is a crucial place to grow your brand. In order to do so, you need to know what makes a successful Instagram profile. By using their “story” feature, you can increase engagement to spread brand awareness. In order to utilize this feature and to have the best stories that can help your brand thrive, make sure to to follow these tips below:
1. Promotion/Ads
One key way to increase engagement is through the understanding and proper execution of promotions and ads through your story as well as the rest of your content. First finding footing by considering these points for your feed, you can then carry them over into your individual stories.
2. Brand Collaboration
This can help build your audience and will diversify your content. Working with brands, celebrities or influencers and pages with mass followings can definitely increase engagement!
We spent time researching, gathering information, and worked on creating media and content to best share what we learned.
- Media Kit: Before brands are reaching out to you for collaboration, you will more than likely be the one reaching out to them. The biggest step in doing so would be sending a warm email and with a media kit. This media kit should include your name as well as any social media handles alongside the number of followers you have currently. Business-wise you should plan on giving your email and LinkedIn before going into what exactly you hope to garner from a collaboration. This step should occur with information on your page and the aesthetic you are shooting for, as well as any previous brand collaborations. The more kits you make the bigger and better they will become.
- Cross-promotion also drives building your audience and maintaining engagement from followers. Cross-promotion can mean posting through several of your own social media accounts, or something similar to brand collaboration in working a message through accounts that are not all yours. You can use Instagram to promote something on another account or vice versa for as much exposure as possible.
One way to approach cross-promotion on Instagram is through considering connections to your Pinterest account. IFTTT (If This Then That) is a free website that lets you bind such accounts allowing for a post on one to be immediately posted on the other.
3. Create Content that is Unique
Posting content that is creative and unique will help your brand stand out over others. Find ways to be different and get out of your comfort zone with the photos that you post. Utilize the features that Instagram has to offer in a new way that no one else has. Try to constantly be searching for inspiration and ideas on how you can switch up your stories.
4. Know your Audience
Knowing the kind of people that are interested in your brand is vital in order to know what their needs are. You want to create content that is relatable and relevant to your target audience. Ask yourself what kind of people you want to be producing content for, and then figure out what their interests are in order to cater to what they want. You can even achieve this by going to the sticker tab at the top right of your Instagram Story screen, and selecting either the question, polls, or quiz sticker. This allows you to get to know your viewers a little more. It will also create a loyal following when you are consistently producing the things that your audience wants to see.
5. Create a Relationship with your Audience
Again, be real! There are so many unrealistic Instagram pages, and people quickly recognize that. Being genuine with your audience is appreciated and desired. Post things that you care about, post about other people, shout out your followers, be happy and positive, and put your audience first.
7. Be Consistent
Making sure that what you post on your story is recognizable to your brand is also important. Using the same style of photography and editing will show consistency and add professionalism to your page. You want your audience to know exactly what they’re seeing and who created it. The cleaner and more aesthetic look you have will drive your target audience to gravitate to your page. With that said, it would be wise to have a style guide to base all of your posts off of to keep your brand identity cohesive.
8. Tell a Story with your Content
The story feature makes it easy to ‘tell a story.’ Post things throughout the day that would interest your audience and keep them wanting more. I’m sure you have a few people you follow that you get excited about when they post on their story or feed. When you tell a story with your content and make it meaningful and have a purpose, your followers will stick around.
9. Stay Relevant and Relatable
Nothing is more important than this. You need to keep up with the latest trends and post accordingly. There are so many things circling the internet every single day, and people love to know what the latest news is that’s happening. No one is interested in a brand that is in the dark or only posts about themselves. Keeping up with social media can show that your page is active and following along with what’s going on in the world.
We hope that these nine tips either taught you something new, or reminded you of what you could do better in. Instagram stories are a great tool and way to engage with your audience and increase engagement, you just have to be sure you are strategic within every post.
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