What Are Instagram Stories?

With all of the ways that businesses can benefit from Instagram, posting stories is another great way to benefit from using Instagram.

Whether your goal is to make money on Instagram or increase your brand’s awareness, posting ads or using the Instagram Video app is a great way to share relevant memorable stories.

Similar to Snapchat, Instagram stories is a feature that allows users to post Instagram ads, videos, images, and photos that remain on the platform for 24 hours and then they vanish away. They can only be viewed within that 24 hour period of time; so time sensitivity is of the essence.

The stories appear at the top of your feed in the bar. They are shareable from your friends and your most popular Instagram accounts. (See example below)

When an Instagram account has a story for other users to see, you’ll know by the circle (or the colorful ring) around the profile photo of the account holder. It is at that time that you know you’ve only got 24 hours to view the story.

Instagram users can also share content tied directly to the stories as well. However, they will not appear on your profile, nor will they appear in the main Instagram feed. Only on the bar located at the top of your feed.

To view someone else’s story, just tap on their profile photo. Afterwards, their story will show up on your screen. You will be able to see all of the content that has been posted within the last 24 hours, which will be played in chronological order beginning with the oldest post to the more recent newer post. Use this as an opportunity to show off a promotion or behind the scenes peak at your business’s day-to-day operations. Do you have a team member that’s always singing, telling jokes, or otherwise showcasing their great personality? That is the type of content that makes people fall in love with your brand.

The platform also allows you to swipe or tap your screen to skip forward with the current story or move ahead to the next one. One of the major differences is that you cannot do some of the things that take place on regular posts, such as leave public comments or likes but you can send a private message from Instagram to reply to someone’s story, or they can reply to yours. This presents a fantastic opportunity for a more specific one-to-one style of marketing.

How Businesses Can Benefit From Using Instagram Stories 

Business owners can use Instagram stories as a way to show off the personality of their business or share the day-to-day operations, interactions with customers/employees, or promote a special offer, among many other uses.

Tapping into Takeovers

A takeover is another huge opportunity for brands, whereby it allows one brand to take over another brand’s account for a short period of time – with the purpose of sharing content. Why is this important? Because it allows brands to start collaborating with influencers or other complementary brands that serve the same demographic and they can leverage each other’s audiences. It allows them to pull relative information from other areas, such as a photo from someone in their community that ties directly to the story that they are attempting to share.

Use Stories To Improve Communication

We all know that communication is a very important element on social media platforms. These stories allow brands to do exactly what social media platforms were designed to do – engage with their followers on a one-on-one basis. They can use stories to host question and answer sessions, where they can send video messages with answers to questions that some of the followers may have had. It’s a great way to stay plugged into your audience while building up your brand.Another great thing about the role that communication plays when you share stories is that it also builds confidence and trust among your followers too.

Be Known as the Expert by Sharing Live, Relevant and Timely Content

With so much going on in a wide variety of industries, your company has the opportunity to appear as the expert in your field by sharing live, relevant and timely content with your followers. It’s a great way to provide that in-the-moment information while producing live videos on the fly whether you’re at an industry event, a press conference, or some other event that your customers should know about. Not only are they exceptionally engaging, but when using Instagram stories that offer interactive, live, knowledge-based content, your followers will not only recognize you for your expertise but will begin to rely on you for it.

How Sharing Stories Can Add Leverage to Your Business

When you share stories using Instagram, you not only provide more insight about your brand and your products/services, but you also use Instagram as a platform to introduce them to even more potential customers. It’s an excellent platform for increasing your brand awareness by taking advantage of the roughly 800 million Instagrammers worldwide.

Whether you are a new company starting out or a more established brand looking to reach potential customers in new ways, the Instagram platform provides instant leverage by making you look just as prominent as some of the well-known established companies. If you develop and share your brand, it will gain even more exposure considering 80% of users say they follow at least one brand on the platform—according to Instagram.

So, if you’re new to Instagram stories, now would be a great time for you to jump on the bandwagon and join millions of others who use it as well. According to a CNBC report in June 2017, Instagram Stories has more than 250 million active daily users– just months after its release. Get out there and experiment today!