Over the past few months I have really grown to love Instagram. I went from casually using it and not really understanding the power of it’s functionality to becoming slightly obsessed. Mainly I am obsessed with leveraging it as a major communication platform for my Marketing and Business Coaching business.
I am not alone in that obsession either. Instagram has over 800 million users monthly and 500 million active daily users and growing. It is quickly becoming a place to be and be seen. It’s not just for personal accounts either. 70% of US Companies are using Instagram for marketing, edging out twitter for the first time!* (source:wordstream.com)
Ways to Use Instagram
The photo sharing app, is a way to showcase your life or brand through visual images. You can share any image or short video you like and use filters available to you in the app, to enhance their beauty. The idea behind Instagram is that you are telling a story and each picture you share lends itself to the larger storyboard of your life or your business.
There are many different aspects of Instagram we could cover, but today I want to focus on one specifically that marketers from major brands have fallen in love with. I want you as a small business owner to understand its power and how you can leverage it!
It’s Instagram stories!
What are Instagram stories?
While they are not exactly new to Instagram, stories have picked up a lot of momentum and are being used more by individuals, small businesses and brands. Stories are short snippets of content that you post that can be anywhere from 1-15 seconds in length. They stay up on your profile for 24 hours and then they disappear! Stories were introduced as a way to compete with Snapchat. And it worked! Instagram Stories are a hit, with more users turning to them than Snapchat to share their content.
The snippets of content you share can be in video form, picture form, or words on a screen. You can add words, stickers, hashtags, locations and even polls to your stories. If you are a verified account, which means you have 10K followers or more, you can even have people swipe up your story and gain access to a link for something you are promoting!
How can I use Stories for marketing my business?
1. Step outside the Feed
If you don’t already know, you should be very clear and intentional with what you post on your newsfeed for Instagram. You are telling your brand story through pictures and you want it to feel curated, thought out and most importantly be visually appealing.
When you stick to specific guardrails related to your feed, it can often be difficult to showcase content you really want to share because it just doesn’t vibe with your look.
The stories present a fantastic way for you to venture beyond your curated look. In stories you can showcase other content without worrying that your filters, colors or patterns are being disrupted! If you are running a promotion and the creative isn’t in your color scheme, pop it into stories! It still gets seen and doesn’t disrupt the continuity of your feed.
2. Get Personal!
The stories function presents a great opportunity for you to show more of your personality. By documenting your life through stories you create the ability for your followers to see what you are like day to day. When you take people along for the ride and give them realness, they are more likely to connect with you.
While your feed may be polished and perfect, your stories present an opportunity to show another side of you and your business. Make sure that what you are sharing makes sense for your brand and for what your followers want to see. Something very specific to your community may not be relevant to your 5,000 followers who don’t live in your town. But that awesome new pair of jeans you love certainly is!
3. Go behind the Scenes
Get people excited about things to come by showing your efforts related to your business and your brand. Take them behind the scenes of a photo shoot, or let them see your office or how you tape a podcast! I love to show quick views of projects I’m working on. It’s a great way to make people feel like they are being let in on a secret. Everyone wants to be in the know!
It can be fun to solicit feedback from people and hear what they think. Trying to decide on an image to use or a color scheme to go with? Create a poll and ask your followers! Getting them involved in the processed goes a long way in building loyalty.
4. Stay Top of Mind
When you have a story running, it is put at the top of all of your followers newsfeeds. When you add content to your story, a colorful circle will appear around your picture so your followers know you’ve added content. Having your content guaranteed to be up at the top of all of your followers newsfeed is amazing. Let’s face it, if you are in the Instagram game, you want to be seen. If the picture you posted a few hours ago got lost in the algorithm, your story will still be there at the top just waiting for your follower to watch it.
5. Gain followers!
When you go to the Explore page you will see that Instagram has selected a row of stories for you to watch at the top of the page. Those stories were selected based on accounts you follow and posts you liked. They may also select stories for you based on what has been liked by accounts you follow or ones that were liked by a large number of people. If you land on the Explore page, congratulations! The Explore page is a super powerful tool for Instagram and it can generate tons of comments, likes and new followers for you!
So there you have it! Some great reasons why you should be including Instagram Stories as part of your Social Media Marketing Strategy for 2018.
Have more questions about social media or digital marketing? Join my new group, The Sparkle Coterie over on Facebook and gain direct access to me for training, Q&As, and networking opportunities!
Of course you can always find me over on Instagram @theglittermap_kbm! I hope to see you there!
And remember ladies, you’re not fully dressed until you sparkle!
