Personal
10 Instagram Story Ideas That Will Get You More Followers
In this world of social media where everyone is trying to gain more followers, keeping your Instagram account interesting and engaging is an uphill task. Especially if you are not a celebrity or someone who works in the fashion industry. But that doesn’t mean you can’t stand out from the crowd and get noticed by other users. Creating eye-pleasing Instagram stories is one way to stand out and attract new followers. Your Instagram stories are a great way to get in front of your followers and interact with people to boost customer engagement.
With these ideas, you’ll be able to come up with new and interesting story ideas for your Instagram account every day. Your followers will enjoy watching your stories and may even share them with their friends. It’s worth a try!
1. Create Brand Awareness with Instagram Stories
If you’ve been using Instagram stories for a while, you might have noticed that some users are creating advertisements. While this isn’t encouraged by Instagram, advertisers do it to get more people to click on their link. If you are creating a product or service that is related to Instagram, it can be a great idea to create advertisements on your stories.
You will have to make sure that the product you are advertising is relevant to your target audience. If it isn’t, nobody will be interested in clicking on your link. If you are creating brand awareness with your stories, try to make them interesting and relevant to the product or service that you are offering. If you try to sell something that isn’t relevant to your followers, they will not be interested.
Instagram stories are the perfect place to shout out about a new product or service. Your business should be proud of lunches and sharing news on this platform can help you get your audience interested and engaged as well.
You can also make your product lunch stories stand out by using some of the interactive Instagram stickers. For an Exp: – Poll, questions, countdown clock.
2. Poll Your Followers
The Instagram Polling sticker lets you ask your users a question with two responses. Ask a question related to what you are talking about or showing in your story. This will instantly boost your engagement and get you more views. Play the This or That game with your audience.
There are tons of different ways you can use this feature. Have your followers choose between two names for your new product lunch. Or get extra crazy and have them dictate your entire day – from what you wear to work to what you make for lunch – by posting a series of polls.
It’s an effective tactic and another great Instagram story idea to involve your followers in your decision-making and emphasize that you have a two-sided relationship, rather than constantly broadcasting your messages.
3. Answer Questions
Are you frequently on the receiving end of a lot of questions from customers and followers?
Perhaps people are always asking about the best way to use your product or how you achieve something specific. Instagram story is a great place to answer those questions- Whether you want to talk on video or just create text images for people to read.
The question sticker is another valuable engagement tool for Instagram stories because you can directly ask for questions and share your answers or ask a question and share the answers instead.
Not only does this allow you to engage in direct dialogue with your followers but you can source authentic and unique content as well. You don’t have to just ask for followers’ questions; you can flip it around and ask them a question. It’s a great way to get your followers involved and strike up a conversation.
4. Showcase your Product or Service
If you are promoting a new product, try to do it in a unique way that will make your followers eager to purchase it. For example, if you are promoting a new clothing line, you can ask your followers to create their unique looks using your products. Leverage that to your advantage by providing exclusive content within your Instagram stories.
Maybe it’s a quick peek at a new product you’re developing. Or, perhaps it’s a tour of your brand-new shop that’s opening soon. Using Instagram Stories (and taking advantage of the Countdown sticker) is a great way to give people insider access in a highly convenient and engaging way.
5. Offer a Discount
Another type of exclusive content you can offer within your Instagram Stories? A discount or promo code. Doing so not only means that your followers feel like they’re getting access to something that nobody else is getting, but it can also help to drive sales.
So, go ahead and give followers a code for 10% off, free shipping, or whatever else works with your unique business. You’ll probably be surprised by your results!
To increase the chance of users converting, why not share a few powerful customer reviews or testimonials in this Instagram Story too? This social proof will give your audience another reason to take action and buy from you.
6. Networking
If you are a business owner, you probably know that networking with other businesses and individuals in your industry is a great idea. But how can you do this effectively? One way is by creating Instagram stories that feature other businesses that are in your industry. You can create a story that highlights businesses that are similar to yours and link their Instagram account to yours.
This will allow your followers to discover new brands and businesses related to yours. If you are networking with other businesses on Instagram, try to feature them in stories. You can talk about their business in the story and link their Instagram account to your account. This is a great way to network with other businesses
7. Turn Events into Content
If you have an upcoming event that your followers may be interested in, you can use Instagram stories to promote it. You can also use stories to promote events that have already happened. If you have an event that you want to promote, you can create a story and feature the event.
Announce a virtual or in-person event using your Instagram story. Since stories are top of the feed, users may be more likely to see the announcement, which can increase interest and attendance. If you have the swipe-up functionality, you can include registration information there.
You can also share pictures and videos related to the event in your story. This will allow your followers to get a sneak peek of what’s happening at the event. If you have an event that is coming up soon, try to promote it in your stories. This is a great way to get the word out about your event and may even get more people interested in attending your event.
8. Ask for User Feedback
If you are running a business, you probably want to know how you can improve your products and services. You can use Instagram stories to ask your followers for feedback on your products and services. You may even want to ask them for their honest opinion about your products.
You can use Instagram stories to ask your followers for their insight and input. As far as how you collect their answers, you can have them respond to your story via direct message with their suggestion, instruct them to leave their comment on a recent photo, or even use Instagram story’s poll feature to easily collect responses.
If you are asking for feedback, you can keep the story short and sweet so that your followers don’t get bored. If you are asking for feedback on your products and services, try to do it respectfully. You don’t want to sound demanding when asking for people’s opinions. Instead, you‘ll want to ask for feedback in a way that lets your followers know you would like to improve.
9. Host a Contest or Giveaway
Hosting a contest using Instagram stories is a speedway to boost engagement, grow your following and attract your ideal customers to follow your business account on Instagram.
Ask your followers to post a story about something specific in order to enter your contest. Whether it’s them holding your product, making a happy face, or really anything you’d like. Within that same Instagram story, they should tag your account both by tagging your Instagram profile and by using specific branded hashtags.
You’ll need to stay on top of the notification (you’ll get the notification every time someone tags you in an Instagram story) and keep a track of everyone who has entered so that you can choose a winner.
10. Drive Users to Your Content
Following are the additional uses of the link feature:
-
Use stories to announce new blog content and direct users to use it through a swipe-up link.
-
Promote content that’s too lengthy for Stories, like webinars or tutorials.
-
Tease exclusive content, like video outtakes so people will click through for more.
For a detailed guide to linking on Instagram, check out this article.
How to Schedule Instagram Story Posts to Publish Automatically
Did you know you can use AppuSocial to visually plan, create, schedule, and automatically publish your Story posts, just like you would for regular posts? It’s a great way to build a dynamic feed that keeps your followers engaged, without having to post everything manually at all hours of the day and night.
-
To start the Story schedule, log in to your AppuSocial account (or start a free 14-day trial).
-
Click the Create Post button in the top left corner. Select your Instagram account from the dashboard.
-
Click the plus sign to add your media. Now upload your visuals or source your images, and videos, from your content library.
-
You’ll also want to write an engagement driving caption, add hashtags, and tag your location. AppuSocial allows you to add relevant effective hashtags with the help of the hashtag generator tool itself.
-
You can correctly size your images in the photo editor by hovering over the image in the Media section and clicking on the pencil icon.
-
Then, either choose to send your Story post to drafts or Schedule it to publish automatically at a time that best suits your audience.
Want to learn how other businesses are taking their Instagram marketing strategy to the next level? Check out this blog post on how to increase your following on Instagram and then start applying these winning tips with AppuSocial, your all-in-one social media management platform.
If you’re looking to carve out hours in your social media workflow, sign up for AppuSocial’s 14-day trial. Our all-in-one Instagram scheduler allows you to automatically post images, carousels, Stories, videos, and more. Tag locations, users, and products and manage all your hashtags in one place to save 5+ hours every week.
Summing Up
Instagram stories are a great way to keep your followers interested in your account and coming back for more. If you are using Instagram stories and want to attract more followers, make sure you use these ideas and come up with your own as well. Your followers will appreciate the extra effort you are putting into your stories and may even share them with their friends.
