3 Ways to Increase Engagement with Instagram Stories

Whether it’s the perfect flat-lay photo of seasonal red cranberries against a powdery winter backdrop, or an epic photo of a wispy model taking in some sunshine against the colorful backdrop of Positano, Instagram is known for beautiful FOMO-inducing content. While your Instagram feed is chalk full of visual delight, Instagram Stories are where your favorite Influencers can get real. IG stories are where Influencers show their followers exactly how they misted those cranberries to give them sheen or how long it took them to set up the perfect picture in Positano.

IG Stories is a platform where Influencers can give fans a chance to dive even deeper into their worlds, showing off their unique personalities, vulnerabilities, and individual flair, all while letting their followers have a behind-the-scenes look at their lives. Here are 3 ways to increase engagement with Instagram Stories (and why brand marketers should pay attention): 

Influencer Templates: Influencer templates are personalized questionnaires that have gained popularity over the past few months. Angela, behind The Sunday Chapter blog, started floating around templates on her own Instagram Stories, that other Influencers would screenshot, fill out, and upload to Instagram Stories to share with their followers for fun.

Influencers have also been creating their own versions for their fans to screenshot, answer, and upload into their Stories, asking their fans to tag them where appropriate. For example, a template question may ask “Favorite Beauty Blogger?” and fans can ‘@‘ mention their favorite blogger, increasing overall engagement. To ensure exposure, some bloggers like the @TheSundayChapter watermark their templates and others like Nichole Ciotti who owns InstagramStoryTemplate,  provide step-by-step blog landing pages for fans to access their templates.

Why Should Brand Marketers Care: Simply put, it’s easy. Marketers can create branded Influencer templates, where both the brand and the Influencer can gain exposure. Brand marketers can benefit by staying abreast the latest Influencer trend, while creating awareness for their own brand.

Swipe Up and You Shall Receive: That perfect peplum top your favorite fashion blogger has been wearing is now easier than ever to access, thanks to the swipe up option. Influencers can tag everything from the hat they wore on vacation to ingredients used in their favorite superfood bowl – by attaching a link through the swipe up feature that redirects fans to the product page. The ‘swipe up’ feature is the perfect way to have your brand integrated into an Influencers Instagram Stories, with a clear call-to-action, asking fans to swipe up to create the desired action. Here’s Eden, of Sugar & Charm, who used the swipe up feature in a recent campaign with Stubhub, teasing fans that she got her significant other a gift through Stubhub and directing them to ‘swipe up’ to see what it was! 

Why Brand Marketers Should Care: Not only do swipe-ups make content easily discoverable, but they also provide a clear destination for the audience, making it the perfect tool to leverage for brand marketers who want to drive online traffic to landing/home webpages.

Poll, Poll, Poll: Polling is an easy to use feature within Instagram Stories.  It’s a great way for Influencers to be somewhat vulnerable and ask their fans for their honest feedback on a variety of different topics. This is a chance for creators to get their fans involved and allow them to feel a part of the process. A popular polling trend is to ask followers what type of content they would like to see more of, allowing fans to really get even more involved in content ideation.

Why Brand Marketers Should Care: Polling allows brand marketers to gain a pulse on audience insight. Whether brand marketers are testing a new product through Influencers, or simply learning what makes their audience tick, polling is a great way to get honest answers back from the intended consumer audience.

IG stories would previously expire after 24 hours, but not anymore thanks to the new highlights feature. Influencers are able to save and group some of their most popular stories – tutorials, fashion finds, etc. and allow fans to access them with a simple tap! Instagram is constantly refining and adding new features for fans to enjoy and therefore increase fan engagement.

Captiv8 has the ability to help your brand partner with the right Influencer and can help plan content for your next Instagram Story campaign. Contact us to chat about more ways to increase engagement with Instagram Stories!