Month: March 2020

With the growth of Instagram over the past few years, more and more businesses are making use of the platform to market their products and services. Its increasing popularity has resulted in Instagram putting out new features regularly to keep users interested in the platform and give them something new to experiment with.

Instagram Stories is one such feature of Instagram that can fetch you more Instagram followers and push business growth through the numerous possibilities it offers.

With over 800 million daily viewers of Instagram Stories, you’re seriously missing out if you aren’t already using Instagram Stories for your business. The fun, compelling, and engaging Instagram Stories capability can expand your interactions with your Instagram followers and enable you to get even more traffic to your posts.

Here’s a breakdown of Instagram Stories features that you may include in your Instagram marketing strategy to get more Instagram likes and promote business growth.

Create mode and customization

Instagram’s Create Mode allows you to share content created without needing to post any photos or videos. You can post text-based content for your brand and get a little help from the addition of stickers, GIFs, polls, and emoji sliders. You can also include countdowns to events and invite questions from your Instagram followers to boost engagement on the platform. Queries can be used for an “Ask me anything” style of an interview or even to invite your Instagram followers to share their thoughts on your latest offering.

With location stickers, you get to add a location to your story, making it possible to attach it to Instagram’s very own location story. In this way, you can reach out to a wider audience and end up on the Explore feed of users. The same is true for hashtag stickers added to Stories.

The wider reach made possible by such features means that you have the opportunity to see a growth in the number of Instagram followers you have. You can even add more spark and personality to your Instagram Stories by making use of GIFs.

Polls are another great addition by which you can gather relevant information about your real Instagram followers that can be useful when it comes to making business decisions. The Create mode feature also has an upgrade with the addition of an “On This Day” button that you can use for your brand to create “throwback” posts of past events and milestones.

You can even customize your Instagram Stories with drawing and writing features and add a distinct color to the background of your Stories to represent your brand identity. In addition, it’s possible to create a peek-a-boo effect for your Instagram followers through a solid background and the eraser tool.

Donation button

With a growth in the number of socially and environmentally conscious customers, Instagram’s Donation button serves as the perfect addition to its Stories, allowing for fundraising efforts to be undertaken with direct funds transfer into the accounts of NGOs. Instagram even covers the credit card and processing fees for it.

If you’re an NGO or looking to donate to an NGO, you can exploit Instagram’s Donation button in your Stories to drive fundraising efforts and promote brand image. Furthermore, influencer marketing can help you collect more funds from your Instagram followers and generate more Instagram likes for your brand’s content through improved brand image.

Close friends list

With a close friends list, feel free to add close friends to your list, and Stories will be visible only to those on the list. These Stories are also available for 24 hours but typically appear at the beginning of the Stories queue with a green circle around them.

You can make use of Instagram’s Close Friends List to connect with VIP customers or even brand ambassadors to offer them exclusive content such as sneak peeks, behind the scenes, special discounts, exclusive interviews, and product updates.

Utilizing the Close Friends List, you can also list out those attending your business’ physical events and share content leading up to the event or even during the event. Also, provide locally relevant content for your Instagram followers of a specific geographic area or collect feedback through questions, polls, or emoji sliders from your real Instagram followers by creating a Close Friends List of your top customers.

You can also boost business growth through the creation of a separate list for collaborators/influencers with whom you can share details of upcoming products, campaigns, or other promotions you would like them to make.

Music stickers

The music feature on Instagram Stories is the latest addition that has been picking up pace in terms of its use across different regions. With Instagram’s music stickers, you can add music to the background of your Instagram Stories and boost engagement with your Instagram followers.

Choose the song section you want to be played on your Story and even post the lyrics for the part selected with the new music feature for Instagram Stories. While this may not directly contribute to greater conversion rates, it is helpful in getting your Instagram followers to connect with you more easily and engage in your content, which can boost growth in the long run.

On top of this, the music feature of Instagram Stories is quite helpful when it comes to running a play on words, which makes your brand’s message clearer. Remember to select songs that your target audience is likely to resonate with.

Different video styles

You can make use of a variety of video styles in your Instagram Stories to post content and boost engagement with your Instagram followers.

• Normal – can be used for taking a standard image or video
• Boomerang – creates a moving image through a burst of photos taken.
• Hands-free – with the hands-free video style, you don’t have to hold onto the record button, especially crucial if you want to post tutorials for makeup, or you’re demonstrating an exercise or sign language that requires the use of your hands.
• Superzoom – zoom in on a focus point of your subject and create a dramatic and humorous impact through the use of accompanying music.
• Rewind – can play your uploaded video in reverse.
• Stop motion – plays a sequence of images and creates a video through an animation of your images.

Shoppable tags

With Instagram Shoppable Tags available in Instagram Stories, your Instagram followers can shop directly from your profile and view product catalogues, with the tagging of 5 products allowed on an image post and 20 on a carousel post. With this powerful addition, you can reach out to your real Instagram followers and see higher conversion rates from your Instagram marketing efforts.

Be sure to pick influencers with meaningful engagement to their audience and those who resonate with your brand, as Instagram followers are quick to spot the difference between a genuine product appeal and a paid one. You should also make it a point to utilise pricing psychology so that your price labels attract your Instagram followers more easily and help to boost business growth through more sales.

You can add links directly for your Instagram followers to access by the “swipe up” feature (if you have more than 10,000 followers) or use product tags directly in your Instagram Stories (if you have lesser than 10,000 Instagram followers).

AR filters

The addition of Augmented Reality (AR) filters on Instagram for its users can help you connect with your Instagram followers more quickly, especially with Gen Z and millennials. With Instagram’s AR filters, you can let your customers try on a product before they actually buy it. You also encourage content sharing by your audience using a custom AR filter and generate buzz regarding your brand, thus boosting engagement with a filter celebrating a new product release.

Reels

Reels mode on Instagram allows for the sharing of 15 seconds set to music video clips that can also go viral on the “Top Reels” category of the Explore page. Engaging content can be shared through Stories thanks to uninterrupted scene transitions made possible by a music database, numerous editing options, playback speeds, and ghosting.

Although the feature is only available in Brazil at present, it’s expected to be introduced in other markets soon. Using it, you can benefit from greater self-expression, engagement driven by experience, as well as more creativity so that your Instagram followers have access to quality content.

Instagram Story Highlights

The Highlights feature for Instagram Stories makes it possible to keep your content on your profile even after the 24-hour-period that Instagram Stories stay for. You can pin your Stories to existing highlights or create new highlights to inform your Instagram followers of details that you don’t want to have to keep posting.

Updates, promotions, and stories with shoppable tags can be added to Instagram Story Highlights so that your audience has access to the necessary information beyond the 24 hours lifespan of Instagram Stories. Highlights will play in the same order as the Stories appear, and you’ll need to keep your Stories for the full duration of 24 hours to ensure it gets added to the Highlights on your profile.

Instagram has proved to be a tremendously useful platform for businesses to market themselves and promote the growth of their brands by receiving more Instagram followers and Instagram likes. A popular addition to this already popular platform is IGTV.

Prior to IGTV being implemented into Instagram, videos had a time limit of 15 seconds for Stories and one minute for feed posts, making it increasingly difficult to upload long videos without breaking them up into smaller videos to meet the time limit. With IGTV, videos that are ten minutes long can be uploaded, while official accounts with a significant number of Instagram followers that have a blue tick can post videos that are up to one hour long. This helps to connect with your Instagram followers better and see a growth in your number of Instagram likes.

IGTV plays vertical and horizontal videos

IGTV focuses on vertical and horizontal videos. Vertical videos are great for getting up close and personal with your audience, while horizontal videos are great for high motion scenes involving dance and sports.

Three IGTV video categories

• For You features videos that the Instagram algorithm considers to be something you’ll like based on the people followed, as well as Instagram’s machine learning.
• Following has a video collection from the Instagram accounts you follow, which means that if you get more IGTV followers, you’ll also get more Instagram followers.
• The popular category features videos that are trending on IGTV in terms of their popularity.

Why is IGTV important for your business?

Video is the way forward

The majority of online activities involve watching videos with more people increasingly watching videos on their mobile phones. According to Cisco’s prediction, by 2021, 78% of mobile data generated traffic will be from videos.

Videos can help you connect with your audience in ways that a simple picture or write-up cannot, increasing your ability to engage your real Instagram followers through unique content that gives out a strong brand personality, helping you get more Instagram likes. It is for this reason that IGTV is worth investing in as part of your Instagram marketing efforts so that you can maximize business growth.

Expensive equipment isn’t a necessity

While the idea of filming a high-quality video may be daunting to you because of the cost involved in terms of filming, sound, editing, and lighting, the great news is, for IGTV videos, you don’t need any of it – just a quality video shot on your mobile phone will do. The platform’s vertical format is perfect for it, but, of course, if you want to make use of more expensive filming equipment, you can do that too!

It’s still a new feature

IGTV is still a new addition to Instagram, which means that relatively fewer accounts are using it, which gives you the opportunity to take advantage of the platform, experience growth, use it to gain more Instagram likes and Instagram followers, learn what works, and stay ahead of your competitors while you still can.

It’s simple

The fact that you don’t need fancy filming equipment to post videos to IGTV makes it a platform that offers numerous benefits and scope for gaining more Instagram followers through the simple, easy-to-use platform.

Instagram incentivizes you for it

Just like Facebook offered 100% organic reach to users when they first launched Facebook Business Pages or greater reach to those using Facebook Live when it was just launched, Instagram also offers some benefits to their IGTV users. With IGTV, the much-wanted “swipe up” available on Instagram Stories for accounts with over 10k Instagram followers is available to anyone wanting to promote their videos even with less than 10k Instagram followers. It also allows for links to be added to video descriptions, which is a big bonus if you’re trying to see a growth in your business.

How to make the most of IGTV for your business?

Strategize and research

Don’t just get started with IGTV without having a plan for it in terms of the type of content you want to post, as well as how you want it to contribute to your brand personality. Plan for it well so that you can experience real benefits from it. Put in the effort to research everything you can about it, including how your competitors may be using it. Laying the groundwork will make sure you have a better idea before going into it.

Attract new Instagram followers with your past videos

When you post a video or picture to your feed, it comes with an expiry date because as you post more content to your feed, the chances of any old photos/videos being seen are almost nil. Even with Instagram Stories, your content stays just for 24 hours, and although you can highlight it and keep it on your profile, it isn’t the same as posting it new. With IGTV, you can share videos that you’ve shared in the past, and viewers can see past videos uploaded through the tool. In this way, you can reach more users through IGTV, gain more Instagram likes for your posted videos, as well as see a rise in the number of your real Instagram followers who engage with your content.

Attract your target group through unique IGTV videos

With so much content already available online, you have to be unique if you want to get noticed, and IGTV is a great way for you to do that. With IGTV, more detailed content can be shared in comparison to what your competitors are sharing. It’s also important for you to stand out by posting unique, authentic content to your IGTV.

Using IGTV, you can take your viewers on a journey like no other, sharing with them behind-the-scene footage from your events, a step by step guide on how to make use of your products/services, or even detail the start to finish procedure for your brand’s products and services. You can also market events before they occur and create a build-up and hype surrounding the event, which can result in more people showing up to the event. Remember to include a clear Call To Action for your IGTV content so that you can get your viewers to see the steps to take after viewing your IGTV videos.

Promote your products in an educational way

By integrating the advertising of your products with educational content, you can experience growth in your sales and conversion rates for your business. Tutorials are a great way to display the numerous features of your products, and if your products change often, then updating your tutorials through IGTV videos can help build trust among your existing Instagram followers, while helping you gain more Instagram followers as well.

Build a relationship through schedules

With IGTV, you can show viewers your content on a scheduled basis (for example, once a week), which is crucial for maintaining viewer engagement and generating more Instagram likes. Scheduling your content maintains consistency of postings and can help you build a relationship with your Instagram followers. With regular postings on a scheduled basis, your Instagram followers will get a chance to see you, hear you, engage with your content, and ultimately, this will help to strengthen their relationship with your brand. While posting daily may prove to be tiresome because of the work required in getting content ready to be posted, a weekly schedule will offer you enough time to develop content for your targeted audience with IGTV.

Respond to customer queries

As a business, you’re likely to get asked the same questions again and again, so it’s best to have responses to these questions ready in the form of an IGTV video. You can collect questions posed by your Instagram followers using the question sticker and make a note of the most frequently asked questions to respond to. When you respond to questions of customers, you’re likely to gain their confidence and trust in your business by showing them that you value them and appreciate their engagement with your business, which also helps to strengthen the relationship you have with your Instagram followers. At the end of your video, you can even ask viewers to comment on their next set of questions for you to respond to, thereby, increasing the engagement rate on your videos. Since IGTV videos don’t have an expiry date, your Instagram followers can always view them at a convenient time.

Upload videos featuring customer testimonials

IGTV can be used to upload testimonials of your products from satisfied customers and help you gain the trust of potential customers. Users are much more likely to believe a current customer of your business than a marketing message from the business itself; so, uploading testimonials are a great way to see a growth in your business sales while fetching you some extra Instagram likes.

Measure efficacy and adapt

With IGTV being a relatively new addition to Instagram, there’s a lot left to learn about it, and the only way to do that is to experiment with it, evaluate successes and failures, and adapt your strategy to optimize your IGTV content.

Video specifications for IGTV

• MP4 video format of at least one minute.
• 650 MB for videos under ten minutes and 3.6 GB for videos up to one hour.
• Vertical orientation (aspect ratio of 9:16) or horizontal orientation (aspect ratio of 16:9).