Brands are adopting Instagram stories for more reasons than one. The audiences have also shown a keen interest in engaging with brands through disappearing content like Instagram stories.
In this article, we will learn why businesses must use Instagram stories to promote their brand and engage with their audience.
What is Instagram Stories?
Instagram stories are real-time videos that last for just 24 hours. They can be seen as little round bubbles at the top of the Instagram feed.
Brands can stick an ad between the stories so that users can see it as a series of stories. Ads are full-screen and can be up to 15 seconds long.
Why Use Instagram Stories?
More and more businesses are all over the world are creating at least one story a month to promote their products or services. With about 500 million users using Instagram every day, there is an excellent chance of your ad reaching millions of people.
You can easily link your stories to a shopping page where your audience can order your products. A third of viewed stories on Instagram are from brands and businesses. This indicates that audiences do engage with brand stories that are relevant to them.
All these make Instagram stories a lucrative medium to engage with your target audience.
Benefits of Instagram Story Ads
Here are 6 benefits of advertising on Instagram through stories:
- They are Highly Effective
One of the main reasons why you should consider using Instagram stories on your business account is its efficiency.
They offer reasonable advertising costs, and its set up process is aligned with Facebook advertising. This means that Instagram ads allow you to reach a wider audience.
As seen by the statistics above, Instagram’s user base is growing at a steady pace. Thanks to the mind-boggling statistics of Instagram stories, more and more marketers are realizing the impact of Instagram advertising and, thus, opting for it.
- The Platform is Very Visual
Instagram is an eye-catching and visual platform, which makes it perfect for showcasing your products or services. Creating the right type of photo and video content will help you gain a higher reach.
The best part is that users post images and videos shot with their phones and upload them on Instagram stories. This gives you the flexibility to create campaigns using just your phone. You don’t need to spend huge amounts on creatives or get super technical content.
As long as you continue to make relatable content, you will continue to get an audience.
- Instagram Advertising is Evolving Continuously
Instagram keeps working to give a better user experience through its stories. They come up with new campaign objectives, photo and video filters, influencer marketing features, different story formats, etc.
Features like polls, questions, and hashtags on Instagram stories allow you to engage with your audience in exciting ways. You can even use some features to spread awareness of your brand.
All these help in being relevant to your audience and engage between them. It will even help you bring new users onboard. Instagram is on the way to become the best platform to test innovative marketing ideas through its stories.
- Instagram Provides Detailed Targeting
Instagram advertising allows you to target your audience in a very detailed manner. You can target an audience based on their behavior, interest, demographics, to name a few. This means that Instagram makes sure that the right people see your ad.
Another advantage is that Instagram ads can be managed in the Facebook Ads Manager. Now, Facebook allows you to target mainly three types of audience :
- Saved Audience: This is interest-based targeting.
- Lookalike Audience: This includes people who are similar to other audience
- Custom Audience: These are the retargeted audiences and customers
A mix of these audience types allows you to create a perfect audience pool for Instagram campaigns.
Facebook has a ton of monthly users who spend a considerable chunk of time on Instagram. Therefore, there is an extremely high possibility that Instagram users will engage with your ads as well. This will hold if your ads target the audience’s interests.
- It is Easy to Use
Making Instagram stories is not rocket science. If you know what type of content and message you want to promote, you can easily create your first campaign. Moreover, the ads are affordable. Finally, it barely takes any time to publish your first ad campaign.
They are a lot easier than creating pay-per-click advertising campaigns. Facebook Ads Manager can help you track and analyze your ad campaigns.
- Boost Sales
You already know that you can create shopping posts on your business pages. Well, you can also create Instagram ads that have some additional paid ad features. These will help in showcasing your products.
You can use a combination of photos and videos to highlight products compellingly. If the ad is attractive and engaging, users will make a purchase without even leaving the platform.
Tips to Make Your Instagram Stories Count
- The name itself hides a big tip. Do not think of your Instagram ads as ads, but rather as stories. The more you look like you are selling something, the less the audience will be engaged.
- Make the stories consistent with your brand.
- Keep the stories quirky and fun.
- Be aware of the things your competitors are doing and draw inspiration from them but not at the cost of your originality.
- Stories are one of the best mediums to experiment, so don’t be afraid to do so. Test out various formats, features, etc., to engage with your audience.
- Understand how your Instagram activity, like posting regularly, can affect the stories. Track the timings for all types of posts and understand when is the best time to post the stories.