Instagram stories are a vertical image and video sharing feature, and it appears at the top of the Instagram app. With the Instagram stories feature, you can quickly share moments and experiences with your followers. Stories are displayed in the slideshow format and disappear after 24 hours after publishing. 

If you’re a business or influencer, you can use Instagram stories to generate brand awareness, increase engagement and boost sales. According to the research, 96% of marketers in the U.S are interested in using Instagram stories to promote their brand, product, and services. 

Are you interested in using Instagram for your brand but don’t know how to start? 

Here are some unbelievable Instagram story ideas for brands that can help you to achieve your goals. 

1. Introduce Your Brand 

First impressions are best! Before promoting your brand on Instagram, you have to create an introduction video about your brand. You can ask yourself some questions such as, 

• Who are your target audiences?
• What brand or product do you promote?
• Why do your customers approach your brand? 

This information will help your followers to understand all about your business and brand. In this way, people will visit your Instagram profile and watch all your videos. 

2. Behind The Scenes Videos 

Instagram stories are filled with behind-the-scenes videos. Because it is an excellent way to show in-depth footage of your industry, brand management, team, working culture, and the daily workings of your company. 

Here are the benefits of behind the scenes videos; 

• Connect with your potential customers
• Increase brand awareness
• Build trust
• Capture audience attention
• Increase interaction & conversation

3. Make Use Of Instagram Story Takeover

An Instagram story takeover is the process of taking over someone else’s account temporarily and posting content with their audiences. It is a new and effective tactic to promote your brand to large audiences. 

Before doing an Instagram takeover, make sure to choose the right person who has a target market. It is a great opportunity for brands to reach the exact audiences and followers of their niche. Story takeover creates a strong collaboration between a brand and an influencer. 

4. Upload Stories Regularly 

Posting stories regularly helps users keep your brand name for your follower’s mind. You can upload stories as Instagram regular posts and stories feed. So, you can easily gain more views for your videos and show your brand to the wider people. 

Here are few ideas to post content regularly; 

• Display a different product each week
• Highlight your customers
• Make a weekly question & answer
• Promote special deals and promotions
• Share weekly tips and inspirational quotes

5. Update Testimonials/Reviews

Testimonial or review is the statement of your past customers that describes how your products and services help them. It is the best way to increase your brand presence, increase social proof and engage your audience to view your products. 

So, you can take a screenshot of your customer reviews, snippets of emails and share them with your audience. 

Do some people ask why testimonials are important? 

Testimonials help users to create a deeper and emotional relationship with their customers. It also builds brand trust in your product and services and increases credibility. 

6. Host Live Sessions 

Instagram stories appear at the top of the users screen. Once you go live on Instagram, your profile picture will display in a colorful ring with the word live. So, people can easily identify your profile and watch your live session. Instagram Live is a great feature that allows users to connect with real-time audiences on the platform. 

To go live on Instagram, 

• Open the Instagram app
• Tap the camera icon above the profile icon that appears in the top left corner. 
• You can reach the Instagram stories page, swipe, and click the live option at the bottom of the page. 
• Click the go-live option. 
• Instagram sends a notification for your followers that shows you’re going live.
• Once followers enter into your live video, you can see their usernames at the bottom. 
• To end a live video, you can tap the end option in the top right corner. 

7. Utilize Instagram Hashtags

Hashtags are one of the most significant ways to expand your brand reach and increase story visibility. You can quickly boost Instagram story views by adding hashtag stickers, captions, and location tags. Instagram stories help to launch your own hashtags and leverage new and trending hashtags to gain new followers to your profile.

Moreover, you can also promote your branded hashtag to your Instagram stories to encourage followers to add it to their stories. It is one of the best strategies to enhance your business growth and boost engagement. 

8. Add Swipe Up Feature To Your Content 

Instagram swipe-up links are clickable links you can attach to your stories. 

On Instagram, the swipe-up feature is only available to business accounts that have 10000 followers. 

To add swipe on Instagram stories, 

• Go to your Instagram account and tap the + icon in the top left corner. 
• Create your Instagram story in the form of images, videos, or boomerang. 
• Click the chain link icon and add your URL. 

When followers swipe up your story or click the arrow at the bottom of the screen, they can directly reach your landing page or website. You can also track how many users visit your website from Instagram stories and how many new followers your profile gained. 

9. Share IGTV Videos To Your Story

IGTV is the new feature of Instagram, which helps to capture and post up to one hour videos. You can grab more attention on your IGTV content if you upload it on Instagram stories feed. You can also directly upload your video link on Instagram stories, so people can easily watch your videos. 

To share IGTV video to your IG story, 

• Simply open the IGTV video you want to share and tap the airplane icon at the bottom right corner. 
• Here you can add an IGTV video to your story. 
• You can also add texts, stickers, and filters to your videos. 

10. Go Viral On Instagram Explore page 

Instagram explore page is a powerful tactic for brands and businesses to increase engagement, engage followers to interact with your brand, and get the ideal customers to your account. 

Every user can see different content on their explore page, and it is based on their past activity, such as posts they like, posts they watch many times, and more. If your posts satisfy the Instagram algorithm, you will get the chance to display your content on the explore page. 

11. Use Instagram Polls 

Instagram polls are one of the great features to communicate with your followers effectively. Instagram stories have a poll sticker option, which helps to ask questions to your audience. 

By using this method, you can ask followers about your brand and business and their valuable feedback to develop your marketing strategies. It is also a simple and powerful way to encourage your followers to communicate with you. 

12. Take Advantage Of Instagram Story Highlights 

Instagram stories automatically disappear after 24 hours, but Instagram story highlights can permanently appear on your profile page. This highlight feature also gives the cover option, which helps to add a custom image or icon to your stories. 

Using the Instagram highlights feature, you can give a name and add a unique cover image for each of your stories. You can also achieve your stories on Instagram because you don’t need to save all your stories on highlights – only the important content. 

13. Instagram Stories Ads To Drive Sales 

When you’re looking for organic strategies to drive sales and increase engagement, Instagram stories are the best option. It is an incredible way to show your brand and business to the most engaging people. 

According to the data, 75% of Instagram users visit websites and make purchases through Instagram story ads. If one of your goals is driving more sales, you have to use an Instagram story ads strategy. 

14. Apply Instagram Stories AR Filter

Instagram recently launched spark AR studio, which helps anyone can create and add AR filters to their videos. It is an amazing tool with advanced editing features. It can help your brand to attract many users and reach new audiences within a short span. 

15. Optimize Your Instagram Bio 

One more effective strategy to increase Instagram traffic is to optimize your Instagram bio link. You can use the linktree feature to optimize the link in your Instagram bio. It allows you to add multiple links in your bio section and gain more traffic to your website. 

16. Study Your Competitors 

Researching your competitors can get new insights to improve your marketing strategy and enhance your brand growth. Here are some tips to learn about your competitors: 

• What type of stories they published
• How many stories they upload each day
• Find their collaborations and partnerships
• Check their CTA’s
• Find their hashtag status 

17. Branded GIF Stickers 

GIF is one of the best ways, and many businesses can use this feature to create a unique touch to their stories. It is also the most effective strategy to upgrade your shots, highlight your call to action and establish the fun side of your video. 

Instagram GIPHY library provides lots of static and moving graphics to the Instagrammers. So, you can easily attach them to your stories and direct messages. 

18. Creative Instagram Story Slider

Like poll stickers, Instagram story sliders allow you to ask your audiences and get effective results. In this feature, users can drag the slider to put their response. 

Finding the unique way to create the best slider and add it to your IG stories helps to increase user engagement and receive more views for your videos. Many brands use this feature with heart eyes emoji stickers to get effective feedback on a specific product or service. 

19. Create Boomerangs

Instagram announced a new video app called “boomerang,” which helps to add a collection of images and stitches them into a loop format. It is a high quality mini video that plays forward and backward. Boomerang from Instagram creates every moment as a fun and unexpected one. 

20. Partner With Influencers

Working with popular influencers is a perfect strategy to boost your sales, expand your brand reach and get more followers to your Instagram account. Simply find an influencer who is relevant to your industry and contact them to take over your account and upload stories on your page. 

21. Run Contests And Giveaways

Giveaways have the potential to instantly increase your engagement and get more traffic to your account. Instagram giveaways are the growthful tactic that helps you give away something for free. 

Here are the benefits of an Instagram giveaway: 

• Increase engagement around your followers
• Instantly get new followers
• Show your products to the larger customers
• Generate leads and drive traffic

22. User Generated Content 

User generated content creates the best opportunity for users to get positive feedback. Positive reviews from your followers and customers can help to prove your brand presence and build trust. Instagram is one of the primary platforms for user-generated content. Because it is simply created by other users that represent your brand, product, and services. 

Examples Of Successful Instagram Stories: 

• Sephora – It is a brand that uses Instagram stories to connect with its followers. They promote their product videos and makeup tutorials as stories.

• Airbnb – Airbnb effectively concentrates on creating something unique and fresh and regularly updates its Instagram stories. It also hosts quizzes to ask questions to its followers and encourage them to answer. 

Conclusion: 

In the modern world, social media is an unavoidable source for every individual and business person. Instagram is a powerful social network in the world, which engages many people to upload and watch images and videos. 

In the last few years, Instagram stories are undoubtedly a growing feature, which grabs many businesses’ attention. If you frequently upload your posts on Instagram stories, you can get an unexpected reach and immersive growth for your videos. 

Author Bio: 

Katherin Mary is an SEO strategist and senior content writer of Instausers.com. She has been working in the content marketing industry for 3+ years and has a handful of experience in Digital Marketing. You can also find her on Twitter!