The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Stories Small businesses can have a strong online presence with a business website and local search optimisation. This is especially important because 90% of people using the internet are looking for local businesses.
Moreover, a strong online presence will help your business prove authenticity, give you the means to have direct communication with customers and provide support to them, and, most importantly, initiate consumers into the sales funnel.
Users want to interact with your brand in a playful way to learn about its values, personality, and, eventually, its products. This is easily and very effectively achievable through stories.
Stories from social media
Stories, which were first introduced on Snapchat called snaps, have now surpassed them in popularity. They are an excellent way to present your company in a more relaxed, interactive, and playful setting.
Most importantly, with over 400 million people using Instagram Stories every day, this is a massive platform for raising brand awareness and reaching out to potential customers.
Users are increasingly posting on Instagram, thanks in part to its ease of use and neat aesthetic. In the digital age, your small business’s aesthetic is critical for capturing the attention of online users and converting them into prospective customers.
Why is video content so much more important now than ever?
Video content has grown in popularity, sophistication, and use year after year. Statistics have shown that users prefer entertaining storytelling to traditional sales techniques as they become more interactive and engaged.
Therefore, people want to interact with brands in an authentic way, and video allows them to do just that. With the rise of live video production, it is now easier than ever to demonstrate your brand’s interactivity and personality.
Furthermore, video content is essential for your social media marketing strategy because it builds trust while reaching a large audience.
Tips on how to use Instagram for business
1. Show what makes your brand fun and relatable
Are you one of those brands who are constantly showing their product images on their Instagram? Brands who show their products or services in their stories in a fun and interesting light make it easier than ever to humanise, relate, and buy their products.
2. Interact with your audience
Stories have made it so much easier to interact with target audience with features like geographical location tagging, hashtags, polls, gifs, and stickers. You can now grow your following just by being a little more creative. Moreover, hashtags and geotagging make it easy for users to find you based on location and interest and to find their content based on the topic.
3. Use Polls
Polls are a wonderful way for you to get feedback from fans while making your audience feel like your brand is empowering them. Ask your customers (and potential customers) questions in your Instagram stories and you can boost conversions by 30%!
In addition, you can also ask your customers about their opinions on new products, how often they would like to receive brand emails, sales, and ideas on what kind of content they would like to see from your brand on social media.
4. Instagram influencers
Content creators, influencers, and celebrities can help you reach the right people and drive sales as they tend to be highly engaged with their followers. Followers turn to them for their expertise and trust the advice they share because of the authentic content they create.
Therefore, don’t forget to add Instagram influencers to your marketing strategy when you are working on one!
5. Add links
Adding links to your product, your website, a blog, a YouTube video, an e-book, etc. can encourage users and followers to jump to your link – and to the sales funnel!
6. Implement ads on Instagram Stories
Adding paid ads on Instagram stories based on your target audience’s interests, behaviours, demographics, language, and location, is another way to increase online sales. When users are swiping right watching stories, they don’t even realise they are seeing ads and transition from one story to the next very swiftly.
7. Respond to direct messages
When implementing adding entertaining and compelling content on Instagram stories, be ready to receive hundreds of direct messages. This is a great way to interact with your followers and make them feel like your product is the one they have been missing their whole life.
What is in store for your Social Media Marketing?
If there is one thing that these Social Media Marketing tips have in common, it is the increased emphasis on customer experience. Adopting these trends should be done with the primary goal of adding value to the targeted customer in mind. It is all about connecting with them in a genuine way. As users’ expectations rise, this should be the year your small business strives for a more progressive customer experience.
Wondering what to post?
Are you stumped as to what to post? To begin, you must consolidate your Digital Marketing Strategy and devise the most effective ways to use social media marketing for your small business. What do you want to achieve and how will you get there? FBS Digital can help you with all aspects of your Digital Marketing strategy. Contact us if you have any questions at 0204 526 5195 or e-mail at hello@finchleybusiness.co.uk today!
