How the marketers can create their own success story with Instagram Stories

With one billion daily active users, it is safe to say that Instagram has transformed into one of the most influencing social media platforms for marketers to establish their brand image and build a community of its own. Within 2 years of its launch, Instagram Stories became an instant favorite among users and opened up a wide range of new opportunities for marketers. Supposedly one-third of users are watching Stories every day – that’s about 330m people. According to data from a recent benchmark report, Stories now accounts for 34 percent of total ad spend on the platform. Creating a flawlessly-branded Instagram page is one challenge that we all have come to terms with, but posting exciting Instagram Stories requires a completely different skill set demanding time and patience to ensure you don’t miss any real-time engagement opportunities.

Customer acquisition and retention through instagram

Story ads exist as dividers between Stories themselves—but, like News Feed ads, it’s difficult to tell them apart from the rest of the organic content within the format. However, Stories are also the only piece of content that you can use to directly link to your site which helps in traffic, leads and sales invariably

Offer excellent customer service:

More and more customers are turning to social media for their customer service needs out of convenience but in return, they do expect quick responses. In fact, according to a report, 32% of customers expect a response within 30 minutes and 42% of customers expect a response within the hour.

Make it easy for customers to find you:

Make sure you are easily accessible and visible for your customers all the time. You should also make sure you are active on the social media networks your customers are active on.

Customer insights:

Knowing the pulse of your customers is the best way to drive sales. It can also be said that companies need the right insight of their customers to make better business decisions.

Improving the customer experience:

If you want your customer experience to be a success, you have to listen to the voice of the customer, whether positive or negative. Customer insights help you to stay ahead of your competitors and provide them with the best of services and products.

Sell more to your existing customers:

Research your market thoroughly and profile your potential customers so you know the best way to connect with them.

Expand into new markets with existing products:

Research your market thoroughly and profile your potential customers so that you get to know the best possible way to get in touch with them.

Instagram stories and its features

Within a very short span of time, Instagram stories have captured the heart of marketers worldwide. The modern features and easy format are the two main reasons for this instant success. Take a look at the updated new features of Instagram stories which will make the world of Instagram even more advertiser/marketer friendly.

*Questions stickers

One of the latest updates to Instagram, Questions Stickers easily adds style to your Stories. Letting the option of asking questions by their followers, the users can answer by creating new Stories that show the original question for context. This new feature adds immense scope and potential for brands and is an easy way to start a conversation about brand campaigns and promotions.

*Music stickers

As the name suggests, the Music Stickers gives the users the opportunity to make their favorite songs play in the background of their Story. For brands, this is an added prospect in making the brand message more engaging and entertaining to the target audience.

*Shoppable tags

A fantastic way to promote your brand, the Shoppable Tags are used to label products that appear in the image or video, which the users can tap on the sticker to see details about the product.

*Sharing feed posts in stories

Sharing feed posts to Instagram Stories is a great way to highlight pics from your followers. For brands, this new Instagram feature multiple opportunities such as user generated content from fans in your Stories or you can see directly how the users are taking the products in their Instagram photos.

Instagram stories analytics

Similar to the analytics for your Instagram posts and account, your Instagram Stories analytics can be found by tapping the “Insights” button in the top right corner of your Instagram business profile. Once you open your Instagram Insights, you can switch to the “Content” tab at the top of the screen enabling you to witness data for both your regular Instagram posts as well as your Instagram Stories. You can also get a more detailed analysis of the Instagram Stories analytics by opening your story and swiping up for a full list of insights.

Instagram e-commerce and checkout

Designed as a driving force behind a brand’s sales structure, Instagram has recently rolled out a new feature called Checkout, making it possible for users to purchase products without leaving the app. It will invariably make the journey from discovering a product/service to the actual point of purchase a much more relaxed and comforting job. The new Checkout feature displays a “Checkout on Instagram” button whenever a user clicks on a product tag within an image. Once the user saves their purchasing information within Instagram, they will be able to buy products via the checkout button directly in Instagram and manage their orders in the app.