Don't leave strategy in the dust when you show up on Instagram Stories!
Valuable content, hashtags, and location tags are no-brainers when we organize posts on our aesthetic feeds. However, often times when we hop onto Stories, utilizing features that will increase our views & engagement falls to the wayside 🙅🏼
We see this way too often, friend! To provide you with a little refresher on how you can get the most out of your Stories, here's a checklist for you! 👇🏼
✔️ Tag your location OR the location of your desired audience!
You can keep this visible in your Story or shrink it / hide it if you do not want it to interfere with the visual aesthetic. Bonus: General locations are better than specific ones. For example, you might use Minneapolis, MN instead of an exact address to your location. You'll get a bigger audience this way!
✔️ Include targeted hashtags.
I know you're familiar with hashtags on your feed posts, but they're also extremely helpful when you're trying to get your stories in front of a new audience! You can post up to 10 hashtags in in your story (keep them relevant)! We recommend hiding these behind graphics / text or using the color picker to select a background color that helps your hashtags blend into your story! No one wants to see a huge list of hashtags!
✔️ Share content your audience will find valuable.
You have a bit more flexibility here in the sense that you can post a beautiful photo of a sunset with no text or show insight into your personal life; however, it's important to still be conscious of what you're sharing with your followers.
✔️ Write captions! This is so important, even if it feels tedious. 80% of users are watching Stories with the volume off or on low! If they can't read what your story is all about, they'll skip right through. Bonus: Want to know a super sneaky way to write these captions quickly? Utilize your phones 'talk to text' feature to quickly speak out your captions!
✔️ Use Interactive Content!
Add a poll, emoji slider, quiz or question box in your Stories to keep your audience engaged throughout your slides. When a user takes action on your poll or slider, it's a signal to the algorithm that they're interacting with you! If they have taken the time to answer your poll or slide your emoji slider, be sure you send them a DM to thank them for interacting! There you have it! Give these strategies a try and let us know if they helped you out!