Out of all the social media platforms that have emerged till now, Instagram has become one of the most essential social media platforms for brands. It has become almost a necessity for brands to have an Instagram page because it helps in engaging with the audience at a personal level.

Instagram Stories: What exactly it is?

Instagram Stories is a feature launched by Instagram in 2016 which allows users to post photos as well as videos. However, it will disappear after a period of 24 hours. It can be considered to be slightly similar to that of the Snapchat feature which had come out way earlier in the year 2013.

Instagram Stories: Where can you find it?

The place where you can find the stories of Instagram is the bar at the top of your Instagram feed. It is found neither in your profile nor in your feed. You can understand that a person has updated their Instagram story by the red ring that comes around their profile image in the bar at the top. In order to know what the person has added to their story, you simply have to click on their image. While you’re watching the story of a person, you can either move forward or go backward by tapping either the right side of the screen or the left.

Instagram Stories: The Types

There are 10 types of Instagram stories that can be found within Instagram. They are:

• Type
• Music
• Live
• Normal
• Boomerang
• Focus
• Superzoom
• Rewind
• Hands-Free
• Stop-Motion

These different features provide you with different results. The features are described below:

Type- It gives you a colorful background that can be changed by tapping the screen. After that, you can type what you want to share. The font can also be changed by clicking on the icon which can be found at the top.

Music- It helps you record a video to a song of your choice or include music with an image.
Live-This feature helps you go live on Instagram. In order to notify your friends that you’re going live, all you need to do is click on the “Start Live Video”.

Normal- This feature is the first feature that comes when you open the story creator. You can use this feature to either click a photo or record a video or upload from your gallery.

Boomerang- This feature allows you to create an animation by taking a burst of photos and looping it over and over again.

Focus- This feature allows you to focus on something while blurring the background.

Superzoom- The feature gives you the opportunity to create a funny or dramatic clip by zooming in on a particular thing accompanied by a soundtrack. It also provides you with four style options (bounce, dramatic, beats, TV Shows) from which you can choose.

Rewind- The feature allows you to record a video and then plays it in reverse.

Hands-Free- Like the name suggests, this feature allows you to record a video without you having to keep your finger on your smartphone’s screen.

Stop-Motion- This feature helps you create a kind of flip-book by creating short animations from your photographs.

Customization of Instagram Stories

You can customize your Instagram stories by the following few methods: Adding Face Filters, Adding Text, Drawing/Painting, Creating a reverse color background effect, Adding Filters, and Adding Stickers.

How can you build your audience with the help of Instagram Stories?

The feature of Instagram of adding stories has become both fun as well as interesting. With the help of Instagram stories, you can show your audience your creative streak as well as interact with them. It gives your followers an opportunity to interact with you.

Instagram Stories helps your brand to gain more awareness, engagement as well as conversions. In today’s world, Instagram stories are used by most brands so that they can promote themselves and increase the number of audience. So here are a few ways with the help of which you will be able to build your audience through Instagram Stories.

• Keep Polls, Quizzes or Trivia

The Poll feature found in the Instagram Stories gives you an opportunity to interact with your audience and know their likes as well as preferences. It helps you keep on engaging with your audience and also know their opinions on different things or topics. It helps the audience feel that they are valued by you and they might also feel connected to your brand.

Polls are also a good way to get customer feedback on your new products. It can help you understand the online audience and what they think of you which in turn would help you improve your product if required.

Creating quizzes is another way with the help of which you can gain more viewers.

• Add links to your stories

Adding links to your stories can definitely help you by increasing your lead generation as well as sales. It will in turn help your brand. It has been found that there is a boost in conversations by 30% if you use the Instagram Stories feature to answer the questions of your customers. There is a new ‘Swipe up’ feature found in Instagram Stories, which allows the brand to add links to a particular image or video. It helps the brand to covert the users with the help of social media. It allows them to direct the customer to the sales funnel directly from Instagram. All that the customer needs to do is just swipe up. You can generate leads as well as sales with the help of this feature by sharing web content. Everyone is aware that creating good content is extremely important as content is king. Instagram allows brands to showcase their content to new audiences by posting a relevant photo or video in their Instagram stories and providing a link to the content on their blog or YouTube or site. This allows the brand to drag the new audience back to their website for proper interaction. The brands can also put up a picture or video of a product and provide a link to the product on their website as well. This makes it easier for the audience to purchase the product shown in the Instagram stories.

• Utilizing Instagram influencer and brand ambassador endorsements

Since 95% of influencers prefer Instagram and consider it their favorite social media platform, it is definitely better for brands to collaborate with them on Instagram. The brands offer a free or a discounted product to the influencers and brand ambassadors in order to build relationships with them. In exchange for this free or discounted product, the influencers and brand ambassadors are required to promote the products of the brand either in their stories or in their feed or in both of them. The influencers are also provided with a coupon code that can be used by the influencers’ followers to purchase products from the brand at a discounted price. In case you have a limited budget, you can also work with micro-influencers.In order for your brand to boost its visibility, you need to make sure that the influencers tag your brand while putting up stories.

The brands can also ask their followers to post stories after they purchase a certain product. It will help gain views of the customers’ followers as well. The brand can also provide some sort of incentive for a guaranteed result. It becomes a great way to spread the word of your brand.

• Implement Ads on Instagram

Both the number of users and the number of ads on Instagram are simultaneously increasing. It has been recorded that in 2017, in just six months there was a 28% increase in the number of ads. It was also seen that just in a year, the number of ad posts had doubled. This is because posting ads work.

The brands have the option to target the audience according to the audience’s preference, demographics, language, location, etc.

Allowing the ads to run on stories makes the users almost unaware that they are watching an advertisement. This is because the ads flow smoothly while the user continues to watch the next story. The brands can also add a link at the bottom so that the audience can swipe up and view the product.

• Create quality posts

As everyone is aware, content is king. If your content is not good, then neither the influencers nor your customers are going to pay any attention to you. You need to create quality posts so that it engages your audience and boosts up your leads. You can choose what type of story you want to create from the types of Instagram stories available and customize it accordingly. You can also take the help of tools like Canva to create interesting images and upload them to your stories. Most people use their smartphone to upload Instagram stories but you can also rely on tools like Canva to help you out in this matter.

Conclusion

If you can use Instagram stories to their full potential, it becomes a tool that is very powerful. If the marketers know how to use the Instagram stories and the gain if you use it, then half the battle is already won. With the help of the unique features offered by Instagram Stories, the brands can showcase their creativity as well as increase the engagement rate of their audience. This in turn provides a boost to the visibility of the brand. It also helps you in building new relationships with your audience. You need to use them as soon as possible because they are definitely the ones which will help you with converting potential customers into actual real customers. Your overall marketing strategy definitely depends on how you are using your Instagram Stories feature.

The post How To Use Instagram Stories To Build Your Audience ? appeared first on .