6 Pro Tips to Increase Your Instagram Stories Engagement

Your Instagram stories don’t give the desired reach and engagement?

According to the latest stats, there are 500 million Instagram stories daily users and the number is drastically growing. That means that Instagram stories are a powerful but competitive resource for gaining customers’ attention and getting leads. More and more people, public, brands, and companies use Instagram stories to drive the attention of followers to the events, updates or whatever else. These six pro-tips will help you enhance your Instagram Stories design and look as well as boost Instagram Stories Engagement.

1. Use Photo-Editing Apps to Spruce Up Instagram Stories

The popularity of smartphones and other mobile devices alongside the rise of Instagram that is the most popular photo-sharing platform in the world have caused the increasing importance of photo-editing apps. Since Instagram has very few photo-editing features, more and people use third-party free iOS and Android photo and video-editing apps which allow to correct and improve colors, manage white balance and brightness, crop and rotate photos, add various stickers and animated text, add different effects and apply filters to photos and videos. Among the most popular Instagram photo editing apps are Snapseed, PicsArt, Lens Distortion, Photodirector Photo Editor, PIXLR, Foodie, etc.

2. Save Time and Money Using Pre-Designed Instagram Stories Templates

You can spruce up your Instagram stories design by applying some filters or effects, adding stickers or text, or you can take the easy route by using free pre-designed static or animated Instagram stories templates. You don’t have to think over the layout, effects, fonts, as everything is thought-out, designed and packed into one easy-to-edit template file by professional graphic designers. You need to download an Instagram Stories template PSD file and edit it in Photoshop with your custom content and text. Instagram Storie’s templates are a great shortcut that helps to create consistent Instagram Stories branding by sticking to several template designs and layouts and simply rotating them.

3. Take Advantage of Instagram Clickable Stickers

If you have not yet tried Instagram stories stickers feature, then do it as soon as possible. Instagram stories stickers are what you need to engage your audience on Instagram. Instagram provides a wide range of stickers: clickable stickers, interactive stickers, animated stickers, emoji stickers. Let’s have a close look at the stickers which help with the engagement.

• #Hashtag Sticker

Using #hashtags, you can boost the discoverability of your Instagram stories. Once you put a hashtag to a story, it becomes automatically visible in search among other posts and stories with this hashtag. You can use hashtag stickers for hosting campaigns, highlighting branded hashtags.

• Location Sticker

By adding a specific location to your Instagram stories, you automatically expand your audience reach. How does it work? Once you add location to your Instagram story, your story automatically appears in search among other posts with this specific location tag. This a great opportunity for businesses with a physical location to be shown to the people nearby who are not your followers yet.

• Mention Sticker

When you mention someone in your Instagram story, the person is notified about him/her mentioning and they can re-share this story through their account. It’s a great way to build a community, build a partnership with other brands, accounts, and humanize communication with followers, which helps to increase engagement.

• Question & Poll Stickers

Another great option to engage your followers is to use question and poll stickers. These type of stickers allow learning valuable information, interests, and preferences of your audience, as well as gather feedback on companies’ products, services, etc.

4. Launch Time-Limited Special Offers via Instagram Stories

People love promotions and sales, but when you add a factor of urgency, they go nuts. You will increase your stories engagement and click-through-rate by posting a time-limited special offer. Don’t forget to encourage followers with an enticing call-to-action text and direct them to a post with detailed information about promotion or offer.

5. Make Your Insta Story More Interactive Using Animation and Music

Make your Instagram story more interactive and funny if appropriate by adding different types of animation. There is an option to add GIFs right in Instagram by simply choosing among GIFs hidden under GIFs sticker option. You can also add animation and animated text to an Instagram story using third-party apps, like Adobe Spark Post, Pixaloop and ImgPlay, Hypetype, etc. Discover more apps to create awesome Instagram stories.

6. Add to Your Insta Story a Link That Directs to See More on Your Website, Online Store, etc.

If you want not only increase your Insta Story engagement, but also convert the views into traffic to your site, blog, or increase sales from your online store, then adding a link to an Instagram Story is a perfect solution. The so-called swipe uplink feature is now available only to those accounts (brands, celebrities, public figures) which have 10 000+ followers. If you have them, ok, click on the link chain icon at the top of video or photo you uploaded for Instagram Stories and put a link with an enticing call-to-action text to make sure that followers will swipe up to read or see more. If you don’t have 10 000+ followers army, don’t worry. There is a great Insta hack to provide a link to a new blog post, a new collection in your store, an upcoming event details or any other content. You can put a link in your bio that is shown in profile, and write a CTA text like “Find a link in bio to see more” in your stories.

Conclusion

These useful tips and recommendations will help you create really attractive and engaging Instagram stories. But, remember, that only high-quality and valuable content can drive attention and make it worth to be engaged with. Create useful and quality content, and your followers will never miss your stories.