Instagram Stories have overthrown Snapchat’s a long time ago. With about 300 million daily active users, Stories have become a massive hit and people from various ages spend about 30 min a day on the app. Stories have increased the use of Instagram by +25 min daily – which is huge. Needless to say, an astronomical marketing power lies behind these stories, and whether it’s organic or paid, brands should grasp the value of these short snips of video or all these millions of ephemeral images shared daily. If you had 10 seconds to show 300 million people your brand, what would you show them?
Use polls to engage
Last year, Instagram introduced a new feature allowing users to generate polls. You can ask your audience for their opinion on a photo, a video, a thought – pretty much anything. Polls are a perfect example of calling to action to engage. You ask something from your audience, they engage by responding. Below is an example of Airbnb on Travel Tuesday, quizzing its follower base. They decomposed their poll into multiple posts, which is nowadays a common way for brands to engage with their audience.
Understand digital storytelling
Are you seeing an increasing number of brands trying to tell you a story? I mean they’re using the “Story” feature after all, right? Follow Nike and Apple’s Instagram accounts and see what kind of stories they share. Nike often shares its sponsored athletes’ success via their Story section and Apple uses its audience’s best pictures to create albums. They both master the use of Stories to … tell a story. Below is an example of how RedBull uses Stories to share a message and ultimately, their brand.
Use text to call-to-action
Asking people to do something seems basic but you get better results if you do. Remember seeing things such as “Swipe up” or “Sound on” throughout your day? You’re being asked to do something. And if you respond to that demand, you help brands’ conversion rates. On Instagram Stories, the CTAs appear at the bottom of the screen, so don’t hesitate to use extra text to guide people into what you want them to do, what action you’d like them to take. Ask them to swipe up, or to vote, or to like, or to comment their thoughts or to turn their sound on, so they can be fully exposed to what you have to tell them. Here is Chobani overlaying text to call their users to take an action.
Explore Story ads
Instagram allows businesses to run photo ads for 10 seconds or video ads for 15 seconds. And that’s not much time for your brand to make an impact – especially knowing that people skip ads all the time. So you need to catch the eye quickly. People will decide within a split second if they care to stay and watch the rest of your ad, or if they’re outta here. Use strong visuals, bright colors and bold photos. Studies show that real-life images convert better than animated/graphic videos and that’s because real-life ads blend better within your users stories. Your objective is to grab the attention for a few seconds, in a powerful way, and to make sure people remember you by leaving them with a clear message, conveyed with strong visuals.
Bottom line
Instagram Stories are still considered a new medium for digital advertising and marketing, which makes it the perfect time to jump on board. With an increasing number of users, leveraging the power of Stories to communicate your brand is a smart move that you must consider when setting up your brand strategy.
Don’t stop exploring! 🙂
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