As a brand, posting stories on your Instagram daily could improve your engagement and keep the page active. While having one IG post per day is enough, it doesn’t have to be the same stories. You could have many of them on your account within 24 hours and no, it doesn’t look extra at all!

Adding value to Instagram stories is possible via many elements. Stickers add the trait of friendliness, highlights add clarity and easy access, behind-the-scenes project brand transparency, post polls, and questions to engage the audience, make live videos from various locations, and so on.

Now let’s go through how each of the above styles and formats can help boost your brand through Instagram stories.

1. Stickers, memes, and GIFs

Make stories on your Instagram pop with a bit of fun! Being a brand doesn’t mean you have to talk about business 24/7. Generate memes or look up stickers and GIFs related to any upcoming holidays, events, or even current affairs. Having a sense of humour adds an emotional and human touch.

So, your IG stories need to be business-oriented but they don’t have to look boring! Giving off lighthearted vibes can make your brand appear approachable and friendly. Your customers won’t hesitate to come forward with their queries and feedback.

2. Highlights

It’s best practice to have all your products and services on Instagram! And the best way to do that is through having highlights but what are they?

Instagram highlights allow you to create categories as you would have on a website. But instead of having a grid of product displays, you need to cherry-pick the stories you’ve already posted. For example, if you’re selling bags, create a product highlight called ‘Bags’ and fill it in with previously posted stories related to the said article.

Using highlights to showcase ‘memories’ other than products

• Customer feedback and reviews

• Tutorials and how-tos

• BTS highlights

• Best Selling products and services

• Special collections according to holidays

How to create highlights

Post a story or you can even access previous ones from the stories archive.

• Once you open a story, look at the bottom right.

• Tap on the circle having a heart inside it.

• A new window will pop up, giving you the option to add the story in a highlight that’s already been created.

• If you don’t already have a highlight, you can create a new one by adding the title and an appropriate cover to go with it.

• The highlights will be displayed on your IG profile in the form of circles. Follower or not, anybody can access them at any time. You can remove them from your profile whenever you want.

Note that if you don’t have a cover for a new highlight, the story you’re picking will be used for it.

Bonus tip: Create a template that you could use as a cover for all your highlights. You would only need to change the label on each, that’s all!

3. Behind the scenes

How does behind-the-scenes help add value to your brand? It’s simple: Customers get to see how you work, which makes your brand transparent. So you come off as a trustworthy business and also inspire others by showing how much care and effort you put into your offerings.

To make the most out of your BTS stories, here are a few tips:

• Keep it short and simple. Make a boomerang of how you pack your product. In case of a service, make an extremely short video.

• If your product has organic ingredients, show them to your followers and take part in spreading the word for eco-friendliness!

• Make snippets and clips of your product photoshoots.

• Put up photos of your team. People who make the magic happen are important and they deserve to be recognized for their talent and hard work.

Don’t go too much into the details with BTS stories. Remember to keep some mystery, as it will add charm to your brand’s voice.

4. Polls and Questions

Remaining idle is no good. Keeping your audience engaged is everything - and it’s possible by posting interesting polls and questions from time to time.

• Host competitions through IG stories. Put up a series of general knowledge questions as a trivia quiz. You can offer a discount to the winner or anything that

• Ask your followers to guess your upcoming product or service.

• Prompt customers to put in feedback for future services. What would they like for you to manufacture or offer more? One suggestion could boost your business more than you can imagine!

Think of it as a kind of survey used to collect information about customer psychology. Having this data in hand will also help you groom your brand and understand the personas of your target audience all the better!

5. Locations

Don’t have the same background in every IG story! Get your creative juices flowing and have backdrops from both indoors and outdoors that convey the story better. If you have an important meeting or have a public event, don’t just mention the location - tag it in your stories! It’s a good way to team up with other brands and also make it to the public story stream that has been tagged by the same location.

6. Create photo streams

Dropping photos in IG stories is one of the latest features by the social media giant. For instance, you could use a prompt like ‘Drop in your favourite photo wearing black’. This allows your customers to share their experiences and also put up the story on their IG profiles. This strategy works best to gain more followers and add a fun and playful essence to your brand.

Conclusion

Regardless of the industry or sector of your brand, IG stories are never a bad idea. You could be very flexible with them by posting multiple times throughout the day and night. Keep a balance between making it fun, professional, and also a means of engaging with your followers. Oh, and don’t forget to create highlights and keep the best stories up there for everyone!