At Facebook’s F8 2019 conference back in May, the company reported that there are now more than 1 billion people using Stories feature each day across those apps – Facebook Stories, Instagram Stories, and WhatsApp Status.
Overall, stories could be your ticket to boosting brand awareness, increasing social engagement and followers, and, finally, improving your sales! So, be more careful about what and how you are posting and try to improve your Instagram feed continuously.
There are 400 million people using Instagram Stories every day, and a 3rd of the most viewed stories are from product brands and business pages. People enjoy using Stories – which means that business pages also should be aligned with that shift.
In this article, you will found 6 key Stories tips – including examples – which may help to guide your process, and put together more effective Stories and Stories Ads.
#1 Start with Picking Up Quality Photos and Videos
You have only a few seconds to catch the viewer’s attention, so the first thing you need to do is to impress with your high-quality visual content since Instagram Stories is a visual platform.
If you run a single photo ad, make sure that you use a bright visual with clear brand identity and strong messaging. The Instagram user wants to know who you are, what you do, and how you can help them before the ad runs out.
Never forget to follow proper specifications for your images and videos to ensure that your ads run optimally in Stories.
Image:
- Aspect ratios: 9:16 and 4:5 to 1.91:1
- Max duration: 5 secs
- Max file size: 30 MB
- Supported image types: .jpg, .png
- Recommended resolution: 1,080 x 1,920 pixels
- Min resolution: 600 x 1067 pixels
Video:
- Video ratios: 9:16 and 16:9 to 4:5
- Video File Size: 4GB Max
- Video Length: 1 to 60 seconds
- Video Sound: Optional
One more tip: Think Vertical
If you say mobile-first, vertical first comes after it. Warby Parker has nailed vertical presentation in its Stories content:
#2 Keep Stickers to a Minimum
Using the right Instagram Stickers at the right time not only makes your stories more interactive and cool but may help you in achieving your marketing goals, from reaching a new target to promoting your brand.
The stickers – and particularly the abuse of stickers – can actually hurt your Stories engagement. Don’t fill up the screen with extras, it’s better to only use contextual stickers, which enhance the experience of the user. The following customizable stickers are great for marketing:
- Hashtag sticker is a clickable hashtag, which helps you reach more people or promote your own branded hashtags.
- Mention sticker tags another user in your stories and notifies them that you’ve done it. When someone clicks taps on the sticker, they’ll be taken to the tagged user’s profile.
- Location sticker mentions a location in your story to increase your page’s reach.
- Question sticker helps you get ideas, feedback, and responses from your followers. You can share their answers directly to your stories as a follow-up post and expand the engagement.
- Poll sticker asks your followers a question, and give them two answers to choose from.
- Music sticker adds background music to your Instagram story and lets you pick up a soundtrack from Spotify.
- Emoji slider sticker asks users a question that they can answer with a slider, such as “how much do you love our new product packaging”.
- GIF stickers are looping graphics from GIPHY that you can add to stories and make them more fun. Besides dynamic, they can be used as animated calls to action to your stories, like “Follow us”, “Tap here”, etc.).
#3 Add a Call-to-Action
Always add a CTA for your ads. It is essential for Instagram Stories Ads as the audience has just a few seconds to engage with your awesome Instagram story. To be able to convert users into customers, you must be directing the art of cheering your audience to swipe up and take action. CTAs depend on your campaign.
Nothing increases an impulse purchase more than a limited-time offer or a special offer! Creating a feeling of urgency within your Stories ads is one simple way you can make the users swipe up and visit your website!
Used strong CTAs in your ads in order to drive people to visit their page and get more information.
#4 Add Music
Instagram announced that 60% of Instagram Stories ads were watched with the music on! Adding audio, whether it’s a voice-over or music can make your Instagram Stories ad more attractive and exciting to your viewers.
Brands like Calm, Juicy Couture, and Vichyuki all include audio effects, voice-overs, and music, for their Instagram Stories ads! Don’t forget to try it out next time!
Bonus: Engage Your Audience With a Poll or Quiz
Polls and questions are an effective way of grabbing viewers’ attention and prompting them to engage with your Instagram Stories Ads. After running the poll, you can post the results of it on your profile and people who have voted are tend to come and check the results. It keeps your viewer engagement going, even after the ad has stopped running.
Similarly, a quiz link is an effective call-to-action when you want to drive traffic to your website. You add an interesting quiz topic on your ad and add a link to the actual quiz on your website.
