If you're looking to build on your audience engagement or grow a community, Instagram Stories is one of the easiest formats to create. Part of the reason why it's so effective is that it's informal and there are so many features to make your content interesting and creative. Some of the features we especially love include polls, stickers, Q&As and the ability to give your audience an insight behind-the-scenes. To get you started, we've put together some ideas for you to try for yourself:
Ask Me Anything (AMA) - using the question sticker, you can host a Q&A series. Post a story question then share your answers using relevant images or videos to make it more engaging.
Preference Polls - Find out from your audience if they prefer this or that in a series of story posts. Dogs or cats, summer or winter, chocolate or cake - you get it!
Vlogging Behind-the-Scenes - dedicate a time of a day and film clips showing your audience what a day in the life of you or someone in your business looks like. Take them on a journey as though they're a fly on the wall.
Promote an Event - using the countdown sticker, get your audience hyped for future events!
Share a Blog Post - using the link sticker, create a direct link to your website blog. Add call-to-actions like 'Click to read the full article'.
Reshare an Instagram Reel - repurpose past Reels on your Stories to give them new life!
Answer FAQs then Save Them as a Stories Highlight
Share Tagged Posts - Collect all the posts you've been tagged in and share them in your Stories with a comment to keep your community engaged
Instagram has over 500 million users watching Stories every day. It's an amazing way to give your followers a quick snapshot into your life and what you have to offer. Whether you're a consistent Stories user or not, as with all content formats and platforms, all you need to do is get started.