The stories’ concept is like pictures; one person wanted to show other people what they could see. Stories have been introduced to many platforms, including Instagram, which are pictures people take to show how their day went. Stories are not like posts that stay forever but, they are temporary which only live for one day. People can also upload videos as part of their story, highlighting significant moments when uploading the stories.
Stories are a great way to keep your friends updated on your activities without permanently saving the pictures. The concept became famous fast, where people shared tones of images each day with their friends and family. Each platform has this feature enabled, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and even WhatsApp messenger. Stories are placed on the top of any social media platform, making the user immediately scroll through them. Youngsters are now habitual of scrolling the stories section before moving onto the newsfeed. This recent phenomenon of going through the stories regularly presents an opportunity for businesses to market their products.
Businesses are looking to reach their target audience, and Instagram offers user data to target a specific audience. This is not possible with most mediums of marketing—increasing the reach leads to product awareness in consumers’ minds to build a strong brand identity. There is an excellent opportunity to increase your sales by offering the right products once you can attract traffic. Instagram stories have immense potential in this regard that they can reach a high number of audiences.
There are around 500 million users on Instagram who can be reached with a touch of a button. All the followers can see the story once it has been uploaded, and it can be promoted to reach even more people. Awareness is the first step of the consumer purchase model in which people come to know about the product. Businesses can then create interest in the users by offering tempting promotions.
There are multiple ways Instagram stories can be utilized to captivate your audience. The average social media user’s attention span is less than a few seconds, which means you have a tiny window to spark people’s interest. This would suggest that Instagram stories should be used to announce new products, new staff, and other updates. You can also post behind the scenes (BTS) shots of the business you do not want to feature on your Instagram profile. People enjoy these little moments, which could be a product unpacking or having fun at the office.
Another great way to use Instagram stories is to announce a collaboration with influencers and other brands. Instagram stories can be used by both parties to let people know about collaboration. Influencer marketing is the most popular way of increasing sales with low investment. The return on investment (ROI) is high, which is why your business should be collaborating with influencers and posting it in stories. Influencer marketing is one of the four trends shaping the future of Instagram marketing. The third way to use stories is to highlight stories, showing above the posts, that are not deleted 24 hours after posting them. Instagram highlight stories are great for mentioning terms and conditions, showing highlights, or writing about the business.
Social media platforms should build a community around the business, which is a pull strategy. Due to innovation, Instagram stories can be used in many creative ways. There is an option to create a poll in the stories, asking about the people’s opinions. This is a great way to engage people since it sparks the curiosity to know the poll results, representing what other people are thinking. This can be used to conduct primary research without creating boring questionnaires that no one wants to fill.
Then there are reaction sliders in which people slide a reaction to let you know how intensely they feel about what is being asked. The business analytics on Instagram tell you about how engaging the content has been after posting these reaction sliders in stories. You can also ask questions from people who can help you improve your products.
Social media platforms marketing is the way of the future where businesses can precisely target their audience. The returns from digital marketing are better than other forms of media, and Instagram stories can be a great way to market products. There are multiple options in Instagram stories, such as reaction sliders, questions, highlights, announcements, and announcements posted in Instagram stories to engage the community, leading to increased revenues.
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