8 incumbent tips on using Instagram Stories for marketing

The article shares quick tips which marketers need to keep in mind, when they are using Instagram Stories for marketing

According to a recent report published on CNBC, Instagram continues to witness incredible growth owing to Storie. The app is now reaching 800 million monthly users and 500 million daily users. In just over the last year, there has been a spike of around 160 percent in the user base. In fact, in June, Mark Zuckerberg announced that, Instagram Stories crossed the 250 million user base within a year of its existence.

Instagram Stories is relatively new and a still-evolving content platform, but it encourages authenticity and creativity. There is a huge opportunity for brands to incorporate Stories in their Instagram marketing strategies.

Below are few quick tips which marketers need to keep in mind, when they are using Instagram Stories for marketing

Use the correct hashtags

Hashtags in Instagram Stories are best used only if you own them, for e.g. if you’re running a Mother's Day contest and you’re getting customers to submit photos of themselves using your product under your brand’s hashtag. Using the right hashtags, would increase the exposure of your posts. If you own a hashtag, it will take people to a collection of posts which is only about your brand. 

Mentions

One of the best things about Instagram Stories and what sets it apart from Snapchat is its tagging and linking capabilities. You have the option to tag customers and followers with a personalized message. This sends a notification to the user who will more than likely see the content. However, be careful of not over-tagging people.

Try Instagram Live

Once you have a decent follower base on Instagram, then you can try Live, it is on the spot and offers great scope for interaction with viewers. Try to go Live more often and concentrate on providing great content. One of the advantages of Instagram Live is that, followers get notification when you start one. Once you've finished your Live stream, you also have the option of uploading it to your Story for the next 24 hours.

Product Launches

When you are launching new products or services, you can create short video clips or photos to showcase the same in the form of Instagram stories. Keep the audience hooked on to your brand, by sharing teasers of your newly launched products.

Demonstrate Your Products

You can also demonstrate the functioning of your products using Instagram Stories. Give a run through of the product or service and give the buyers a feel of it.

Have exclusive sale offers

In order to entice the customers, you can have exclusive sale offers for the customers on Instagram Stories. You can add a discount code on the story to know the conversion rate.

Take your followers behind-the-scenes 

Customers are always very keen on knowing what is taking place behind the closed doors. Through Stories, give the people a glimpse of your company's factory or gym. You can use it to showcase your employees, the work culture, shares videos and pictures of fun-activities like picnic or office parties. If you are a beauty brand, then you can use Instagram Stories to show your consumers behind-the-scene look on shoots to mini tutorials.

Keep the length of your videos between 5-10 seconds

Anything below 5 seconds won't capture the essence of what you are trying to say and anything over 10 seconds will most likely get swiped over. Also, remember to keep the usage of the texts to minimum. Use great visuals to attract the attention of the consumers. 120- year old company General Electric does great visual story telling on Instagram.

The approach should therefore be to stay consumer focused, keep the content as engaging and interesting as possible on Instagram Stories. Also, concentrate on growing your follower base as it increases the chance of the visibility of your post. However, refrain from publishing content too frequently. We advise you to jump into it and only then, you will be able to discover which strategy works best for your brand on Instagram Stories.