For those of you who are unaware, this feature is pretty much a direct copy of their competitor Snapchat, who originally created the story feature for their platform (and trust me when I say these features are identical in purpose and use). The story feature (for both Instagram and Snapchat) allows users to upload a live photo or video to their Stories which is able to be seen for 24 hours before disappearing. This is a competitive move, and from Instagram’s perspective, it’s just smart business.
Instagram > Snapchat
Ok, so now you’re thinking “Great, it’s just another addition to the ever-changing social media environment. But let me put this to you, have you as a business tried to grow your audience through Snapchat? It’s a very time consuming task, unlike Facebook and yep thats right, Instagram. Instagram allows you the ability to follow your competitors followers, pay for ads which appear in your targeted audiences feeds and leave a trail of your brand name by liking and commenting on other profiles photos. Essentially Instagram allows you to reach new audiences and grow your following rather easily in comparison. So keeping that in mind let’s move on to how you can use Instagram Stories for your business.
Here are our top 3 benefits of Instagram Stories for businesses:
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Video content
- Video Content is the best content; however, it can be the most time consuming to create. With Stories, you can create videos on the go, meaning great content with time saved. You can also save this content to your camera roll to upload to your other channels, as well as upload it then and there to your Instagram profile. If you’re a business
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Personalisation
Be personal with Stories by including your day to day operations. Show your audience how fun your business can be, or what you’re good at. Display your services, give your viewers content which they won’t find within your instagram profile. When it comes to social media, it’s important to create a story about your brand – personalising your Instagram through Stories helps you do just that.
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Promotion
Discounts, competitions and product/service advertising are all forms of promotion you can leverage with Instagram Stories. If you have an E-commerce store, use Stories to run a unique 24-hour discount code which only applies to the people viewing your story, this can act as a countdown timer. If you’re a service, use this feature to help raise awareness of how your service works, promote your benefits or even promote an offer and if the user screenshots the photo they can show you and claim it.
Be creative – the opportunities are endless. We recommend taking the time to get some ideas together and making the most of this new feature. Create yourself a plan of attack. Start with a strategy and get everyone within the business involved. Another benefit of Instagram over Snapchat is you can have up to 5 different profiles signed in at once and as many users as you like signed into any account, compared to Snapchat where only 1 user can be signed into an account at a time. So this means you can have the whole team involved in this process!
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