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Instagram has grown beyond any other social media platform and has been a marketing boon recently. The platform values authenticity and creative posts and stories are the ones that get the maximum views.
With more than 300 million people viewing the platform’s stories daily, Instagram presents a sea of opportunities for business growth. The beauty of Instagram is that it gives startups a fair platform to compete with established businesses. However, you must recognize the intense competition in this field and realize that creating just any content is not enough.
To get the most out of Instagram, you need to understand the concept of Instagram stories and find out how you can leverage them for marketing strategies. Stories on Instagram allow users to post photos and video content that disappears after a day.
Creative Story Ideas to Engage your Audience
Due to the higher viewership associated with stories on Instagram, these have better visibility. As a brand, you need to come up with creative video ideas to make the most of this platform and get your message across to the viewer. To conduct competitive marketing strategies, here are some creative story ideas to help you create interesting Instagram videos.
1. Answer Questions
If you’re an industry veteran or a brand that has launched a new product, chances are you regularly get a lot of questions from your followers. The questions can range from alternative uses of the product features of your service or any industry-relevant information. Stories give you an excellent opportunity to answer these questions and reassure your followers.
Since stories are small content, people are more receptive to them. While answering questions, you can increase engagement by asking your followers to leave their questions as comments. Answering such questions in your next videos demonstrates the foundation of a healthy business relationship.
2. Carry Out an Employee Takeover
In an employee takeover, you let one of your key employees take over your Instagram account for a day. In this way, they can give an insight into their lives. They take the viewer on a tour of the office and show off their workplaces. Behind-the-scenes glimpses of the office make your Instagram followers see your brand as a human entity.
It is a general human tendency to enjoy feeling exclusive. When your loyal followers get exclusive access to the lives of the key people who drive your brand, it develops brand loyalty. Ideally, when indulging in staff takeovers, you should give your viewers complete creative control over content preparation.
3. Share the Making of Things
The human mind is curious, and your followers will likely enjoy the content that teaches them how to create an item. If you are a product-based company, you can take the viewer through a guided journey of your production line.
Alternatively, you can feature a fun craft project, do a carousel story post on your team’s fitness journey, etc. Such value-adding content gets better views and helps establish you as an industry veteran.
4. View Other Accounts
Instagram encourages creating a sense of community on the platform. Indulging in promoting and supporting other accounts will pay off in the long run. Start by posting screenshots of other accounts you like on Instagram and tag the page. This promotes a cooperative atmosphere and encourages them to give back another day. While you’re free to promote any other business page, it’s best to avoid tagging your direct competition, as it can confuse followers.
5. Hold a competition
An effective way to get your Instagram users involved in your branded stories is by organizing contests. For example, you can ask your followers to post stories about your product and tag your brand account. The best posts can be re-shared from your account, giving them more visibility. Since most Instagram content creators are eager for such publicity, they will be interested in joining the challenge.
The Instagram algorithm allows users to tag only the accounts that they follow. Organizing such challenges gives an instant boost to the number of followers. Furthermore, such challenges also give you access to a good amount of user-generated content to fit into your posting schedule.
6. Learn a Concept
Stories are the perfect platform to introduce a new concept to your Instagram followers. For example, if you are a beauty salon owner, you can come up with short videos with hair care tips. Real estate agents can make videos about how the latest real estate law changes.
In your stories, you can present a 15-second snippet of the idea. You can then post long videos on IGTV; viewers who enjoy your story will likely watch the rest of the content.
7. Treat Yourself to Customer Acquisition
A customer takeover is similar to an employee takeover and lets a happy customer take control of your branded stories for a day. This is a win-win situation. When you ask customers for a takeover, they feel more involved in your brand journey, and this helps gain their credibility, making them more likely to choose you for subsequent purchases.
For your followers, the words of a fellow customer carry more weight than a self-promoting message. Such takeovers are a perfect blend of promotional content and value-adding material, making them popular on Instagram.
8. Ask for Suggestions
Another effective way to get the viewer involved in your brand story is to ask for suggestions. Instagram allows you to ask questions in the stories, and you can take advantage of this to understand the type of content that your viewers expect from you. As you grow your business, Instagram questions will help you better understand your audience’s expectations. You can then adjust your business goals accordingly and deliver better results.
9. Promote a Recent Blog Post
If your business account on Instagram has more than 10,000 followers, you can add links to your story. That way, you can promote the latest blog posts and viewers who swipe up on the content will see the blog content. Besides blogs, this feature can help promote your latest videos, products and more.
Conclusion
Instagram is a dynamic platform and staying relevant to the times is the key to success. Your stories should be short and crisp, and only then will they be noticed on a millennial-dominated social media platform like Instagram. As you explore your creative instincts to establish your Instagram popularity, here’s wishing you a fun journey ahead.
