How to use Instagram Stories To Promote Your Business

We all know Instagram is huge for growing and promoting our business, but are you currently using Instagram stories to promote your business? How do you even start using Instagram stories to promote your business? And are you doing it right? In today's video, I'm bringing a guest expert in to show you exactly how you can use Instagram stories to start marketing your business. Hey, guys, my name is Trena. If you are new here and welcome to another episode of Just the Tips. In today's video, we're talking about Instagram and more specifically, Instagram, Instagram Stories and how you can use stories to grow and promote your business. So I'm not the expert on Instagram here, so I'm going to give it over to Chris to give you her best tips for using Instagram stories in your business.

Hey, guys, I'm Chris from Sweaty Wisdom, and I'm here today to tell you my top five tips for using Instagram stories to market your business. So, Instagram Stories, maybe you've noticed those tiny little profile pictures and circles floating right up at the top of your feed when you open the Instagram app. Maybe you've even played with them a little bit, taking a really cool selfie of your face and putting a filter on it, or taking a boomerang of your dog playing fetch with you. Regardless of your level of experience with Instagram Stories, I'm here today to tell you why you should be using them right now to start marketing your business on Instagram. So let's get right into it. Why are they important and why you should be using them. So. So you've probably noticed if you have an Instagram for Business page, that the algorithms have updated recently to make it a lot more like Facebook, meaning that every time something is posted, Instagram is taking the temperature to see if they think that you would like that item of content. So they're taking that temperature based on what you've engaged with in the past. So if you're a business, your content is less likely to be seen in the feed organically by your consumer. Okay. And there's really no guarantee there anymore. What's super great about Instagram Stories is that they're not in the feed at all. So you've seen them floating right there up above. So anyone can interact with them. They're not dependent on the algorithm. What else is really great about Instagram Stories is they expire so you can get a little bit more messy, be a little more imperfect with them. Because. Because after 24 hours, they're gone. Another really Great thing about Instagram stories is that they provide a direct connection to your target audience so you can talk right to them and have them respond directly back to you without going through the comments. They'll just reply and it'll go straight to your direct messages. And then on the flip side, that works out really great for you because you can watch your audience's stories and then you can reply to those. And again, they're going to go directly into their direct messages. In my experience, 9 times out of 10 when you reply to somebody's story, again, it's going to go in their direct messages, not just into a notification in their feed. When you reply to a story, nine times out of ten you're going to get a response message within five minutes. If not one minute. Really great opportunity there for one on one connection with your audience. There's some really great tagging options too. So you can geotag your post, say you're a business in Grand Rapids, Michigan. You can do a little sticker on your story that will Tag Grand Rapids, MI and add your story to the story for that location. So someone coming in town for vacation can go to the Grand Rapids story, watch it and see your content. Super cool. Let's hop into my top five tips now that we know why they're so important. Number one tip, we all know that it is great content to go live with your audience. Instagram stories provide an awesome opportunity to go live. But before you go live, make sure that you tease your live event in your feed. So make a post saying, hey guys, I'm going live today at noon. I'm going to talk about how you can use Instagram stories to market your business and then ask them, what questions do you want answered? What are your feelings on this topic? Whatever you want from them, you can ask them for it beforehand. And what's really great about that is that when you start alive, there's always 5 minutes ish in the beginning where it's just you hanging out with yourself and that can feel really awkward. So it's really good to kind of pre populate some of your content by reaching out ahead of time and asking people for questions. If you're doing a Q and A, whatever it is that you want to talk about that day. Okay, so go live, but be sure to tease it first. Ask for a little bit of content ahead of time. My next tip number two Ask questions. Give them a way to respond. So we'd also call this a CTA or a call to action. You want to tell your audience exactly what you want them to do. An example of this would be I'm printing new T shirts this week. Here are three different designs. Tell me which one is your favorite by replying to this story. Okay, so you are adding, asking them a question and then you're telling them exactly how you want them to interact with you to give you their opinion, which is by replying to your story. Again, super cool, because then you're going to have a one on one channel started with them. Really great way to connect with your audience and get direct consumer feedback. Number three, set up a really great story. If you're not really comfortable with getting behind the camera, another great way to kind of ease into it is, is by using text to tell a story. You can either go right into your Instagram and just start typing on a background and that'll just set you up in really normal, classic Arial font. You can play around with the size, the color, all that sort of stuff. Or if you have a designer on staff, you can have them whip up something really cool in Photoshop, export it as an image file, and then upload that right to your feed. But let's talk about the structure of the story that we want to tell you. So I found a really great way to tell a story on Instagram stories is to set it up in three a question, an answer, and a call to action. So like a call and answer almost. I'll give you an example. The other week, I knew that I was going to make myself do my first Instagram Live on Wednesday. So on Monday I posted a story that said, hey guys, happy Monday. I'm feeling so excited, nervous, caffeinated, want to know why? So that's like the hook. And then in the next one, in the answer, I said, it's because I'm doing my first live session on Wednesday this week. Then in the next one, which is where I included my call to action, I said, let me know what you want me to talk about in this one. Give me some content to start with by replying directly to my story. I. Okay. And I got a ton of replies to that. So right away you're getting content and you know that it's what your audience wants to hear. Number four, take them behind the scenes. So this is adding to that like VIP Super Special Customer feeling. So you can take them behind the scenes by teasing upcoming promotions, by telling them about special offers that are available only to them, or even by teasing new products. Okay, so this is going to make them feel like they're a special Customer like they're getting in on something that not everybody is in on. And really deepen your connection and develop a sense of trust with them. And the final tip, number five, the most important and potentially the hardest to execute is don't be too perfect and don't stress too much. The really great thing about Instagram stories is that they're gonna be gone. They're not gonna live there forever. So you can be your vulnerable, imperfect self and not have to worry about it screwing up your very glossy, beautiful looking feed. Lately there's been this influx of fitness Instagrammers or fitness bloggers who post their Instagram shot of them like flexing their muscles in the gym and then next to that, they post their real life shot. People are loving these. I'm loving these because you get to see the perfect version and then you get to see reality. So I kind of think of Instagram stories the same way, where your feed is like that glossy, varnished, beautiful, perfect looking presentation. If you're a business, it probably will be that way especially. And your stories can be the. In real life, I'm an actual person. This is what I like. This is what my office looks like. This is. This is what I had for lunch. You just get an opportunity to drop the veil, be your real self. And when you do so, when you come at it in an authentic way that's going to really resonate with people, they're going to feel more connected with you and then they'll be more likely to engage with your content in the future. Which is what we really want here, is to drive engagement. And engagement is what is going to convert your clients. It's what's going to make your business really go to the next level. So to recap my top five tips, number one, go live, but make sure that you tease it first. Number two, ask them questions and tell them exactly how you would like them to respond. Number three, set up a really great story using the structure of question, answer, call to action. Number four, take them behind the scenes, give them that VIP treatment. And number five, the hardest to execute. But the most important one is don't be too perfect and don't stress out too much about it because 24 hours from now, they're gonna be all gone. So I hope you guys found this really beneficial that you feel excited, inspired, and ready to start using Instagram stories to market your business. If you're feeling ready to hop in right now, I'd love to offer you a free download for 5 days of content inspiration to get you started using Instagram stories really effectively for your business. Thanks so much for having me Trina. I hope you guys found this beneficial and I will talk to you soon.

Thank you so much Chris. I'm definitely going to take that advice as I move forward using Instagram stories in my business. I'm going to leave all of Chris's information down below her website her Instagram so make sure you check her out and you support her by following her Instagram. If you found this video helpful, go ahead and give it a thumbs up. You share it on any of those social media buttons down below and leave us a comment which was your favorite tip? Make sure you subscribe to my channel by clicking that circle picture of me right there. I'm posting new videos every single week to help you use video in YouTube in your business strategy. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next video. Bye.