Instagram stories are an important place to engage with your community. They’re easy to tap through, take seconds to consume, and are an easy way for customers to stay up to date with their favourite brands.
But they’re so easily skippable!
Especially if your content just isn’t up to par.
So here’s how to make your Instagram stories more engaging – so you can create an engaged community that’s obsessed with what you sell, build genuine relationships with your customers, and ultimately increase your website traffic and sales.
What You’re Posting
If you’re expecting a list of “hacks” to make your Instagram stories more engaging, you’ve got the wrong social media manager.
No amount of hacks will make up for bad content.
Not saying your content is bad.
But if you’re here, you know it could be better. So let’s get into how to make your Instagram stories more engaging by improving what you’re posting.
- Post Content Your Community Cares About
Use your Instagram insights to determine what content gets the most engagement. Create more of that content in new and fresh ways. If you’re just starting out, here are some content ideas for Instagram stories.
- Use a Strong Hook
Hook statements are all the rage right now for reels and posts – but they work for Instagram stories too. Apply the lessons in this blog post to your Instagram stories to quickly get your customer’s attention.
- Keep it Short, Sweet, and Simple
Save the long-form content for your blog posts, grid posts, and the occasional reel. Keep your Instagram stories short and sweet with simple, easy-to-understand copy. If you need a number, for three slides.
- Use Instagram Story Engagement Stickers
Instagram wants to help you engage with your audience – so use their tools to your advantage! Instagram story polls, question boxes, and quizzes are all ways to increase your engagement, learn about your community, and help them feel involved.
- Ask Your Customers to Reply to Your Story
Take the Instagram story stickers a step further and ask your community to reply to your stories. It’s a chance to have a 1:1 conversation and build relationships with your most-engaged followers.
- Include Instagram Story Links
And not just at the end! You never know when your follower will be ready to click a link. Instead of including story links only at the end, include them in as many slides as possible to increase your opportunity for engagement, website traffic, and sales.
- Ensure Your Content is On-Brand & Beautiful
No matter who your target audience is, I bet they’re more likely to consume content that’s aesthetically pleasing. Our brains are hardwired to look for and to enjoy pretty things. Use that to your advantage with these Instagram design tips.
When You’re Posting
Using your Instagram insights, find out what your best time of posting is. But I know that sometimes, it’ll tell you that your best time of posting is super early in the morning, in the middle of the day when you’re trying to focus, or late at night.
If that’s the case, I’ll say that generally speaking, across multiple client accounts, I’ve found that between 8 and 9am (your local time) performs well.
Once you’ve chosen a time, before judging if this works for your account, commit to it for at least three weeks, but ideally three months.
How Often You’re Posting
Less is more, folks.
Through years of trial and error, I’ve learned that posting one time per day, at the same time every day, significantly increases my Instagram story reach (and therefore, engagement). This is true for my own account and for my clients.
Afterall, there’s some truth to leaving your customers wanting more.
Best Practice: Use Instagram Story Templates
I recommend templating ALL of your social media content – and marketing in general, if you can.
Using Instagram post templates, reel cover templates, and story templates allow you to present a consistent look & feel, enhance brand awareness & recognition, and it makes your content creation process so much easier.
First things first, hi! I’m Sarah—social media manager for food & wellness brands. If you liked this blog post and want more marketing tips, tricks, and bev recs, here are a few ways to do just that:
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