Instagram Story Hacks: Boost Your Engagement Today

Instagram stories are the best way to boost your engagement and enable your interaction with your audience in a more interactive way.

More than 500 million users are benefiting from this feature, which allows them to get real-time followers and organic reach. In order to boost your Instagram reach, organic follower count, and creative content, story hacks are the ideal choice to help you.

How to Boost Engagement: Instagram Story Hacks

1. Use Interactive Stickers

The best way to enhance engagement on your Instagram Stories is to use interactive stickers. There are various types of Sticker options available on Instagram, such as quizzes, polls, and questions. Each Sticker is specially made to connect you with your audience on a deeper level and increase your engagement.

Suppose you want to ask your followers for their opinions on any topic. Use Polls Sticker and ask simple questions. Like “this or that.” Basically, this poll helps you choose an option that the audience prefers the most. It ensures you get the audience-preferred answer and more engagement, too.

If you want to ask your followers for a detailed answer on a specific matter, use a Question sticker to ask them. Similarly, Quiz Stickers helps you engage with followers when you have multiple options and you want to ask about followers’ preferences. Each sticker mainly aims to connect you with followers on a deeper level and indirectly increase engagement.

Image source: https://about.instagram.com/features/stories

2. Use the Countdown Sticker for Anticipation

If you have a special event coming up and you want to grab the attention of a wide range of audiences, use a countdown sticker on your stories. Whether you have a new product launch, new content, sale, or giveaway, using a countdown sticker keeps the followers engaged and curious about what is coming up.

When followers do a follow-up to the countdown, Instagram keeps notifying them about the event. This feature also makes users curious and makes them come back to see what’s in the next story.

For instance, if you have a product launch, then start a countdown in advance. It keeps the audience in the loop and reminds them about the launch.

Image source: https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/instagram-stories-how-to-countdown-sticker-step-8-300.png

 

 

3. Create Consistent Visuals with Templates

People only engage in Stories if they find them attractive. Irregular stories, fonts, and blurry posts only make it hard for your followers to understand the content. This leads to no engagement at all. Well, here comes a template that enables you to create cohesive stories.

Various editing tools like Adobe Spark or Canva offer you thousands of free template options. You can also customize your own template using different colors, themes, and fonts. The customization option is the best part of these tools. It helps you create Story templates based on your unique brand theme and color.

Choose a color palette that defines your brand theme and use them in all your stories. This helps you build your brand image that followers immediately recognize and understand without much effort.

Use different types of templates for different purposes. For instance, events, live, sales, product launches, and new posts must have a specific type of template so that users don’t get confused. Templates save you a lot of time and increase your engagement, too.

4. Add Text Animations and GIFs to Stand Out

Instead of writing simple text for your story, use text animations. These animations and GIFs make your content more prominent, readable, and aesthetic.

Anyone who opens your Story, the moving text will automatically catch their attention. Instagram Stories offers different animation options.

Experiment with them and give your content a whole new vibe. You can use animation to make them bold and appealing. Also, if you have an important message for your audience, using animation helps you specify your message.

Moreover, brand owners must create their own custom-made brand GIFs and use them in their stories.

5. Create a Sense of Urgency with ‘Only Available for 24 Hours’

Instagram Story only lasts for 24 hours. You may use this timeframe for your benefit. For instance, create an emergency situation where followers have to watch your story. If you want an important announcement, new deals, sales, and discount offers for your followers, then use the “limited-time” tactic.

This hack basically allows you to tap into your followers with a sense of urgency. If they haven’t bought now or engaged with your content, they may have missed the big opportunity that comes once in a while. A 24-hour limited time period plays an important role in this matter. You see more of your audience engaging with your content and buying deals in case they are missing out later.

6. Use Story Highlights Strategically

Most of the time, the 24-hour limited frame doesn’t work for long. It surely creates a buzz about you on the internet only for a day and then disappears. This means that even if new users want to grab the same deal or sale or maybe get a discount, They can’t. Why? Because the story disappears, they never know what to do or how to avail of your sales code.

Here comes Instagram Story Highlight, which allows you to save your Story and post it on the feed for a longer period of time. For instance, create highlights for specific relevant Stories like Tutorials, FAQs, discount codes, etc. Keeping the same stories in one highlight makes it easy for users to access them later. Moreover, if you want to keep your sales going for more than 1 day, you can do so.

The amazing fact about Instagram Story Highlight is that it enables you to post custom covers for each highlight, which makes it more appealing.

7. Maximize Hashtags and Geotags

Most of you already know that Hashtags help increase your reach. So, whether it is your Instagram post or Story. The Hashtags work the same. Using relevant hashtags based on your niche, content, and location, you may reach a wider audience, especially those who are not following you.

Hashtags basically help your Story to reach more users, while geotags help you target people in certain locations. Either way, it aims to enhance your reach and visibility. Make sure to keep the hashtag font very small, so it can’t be visible.

Image source: https://about.instagram.com/features/stories

8. Take Advantage of ‘Swipe Up’ or ‘Link’ Feature

The Link and Swipe Up feature of Instagram also enables you to target a wider audience and increase your engagement. Add Links to your website, product, or webpage to your Story. So whenever the user wants to buy your product or service, they simply visit your site through the Link.

The “Swipe Up” feature is only available to users who have over 10k followers on their account. This works the same. Followers just have to swipe up to go to your product, article, or maybe a new post.

9. Use Story Insights to Tailor Content

Instagram Story also comes with a detailed insight option, which helps you understand how your Story is performing. With this insight, you may check different analytics, such as your account reach, views, and impressions. Sometimes, non-followers also visit your Story without interacting with them. Their views are enough proof that your Story is reaching a wider audience.

Use different stickers, formats, colors, and themes in your Story and see how your Story works. Then, choose a format that works best and brings more reach and engagement to your Story.

10. Host ‘Takeovers’ or Collaborations

A collaboration with influencers, creators, or brands helps you tap into their audience without much effort. Promote a brand’s service or product on your page. They repost your Story on their page, which would be visible to more audiences. This method raises curiosity among people who are following brands about why the brand shares this specific Story on their page, leading to more views and engagement to your page.

Apart from collaboration, invite certain guests with a large following to your Story live. Introduce a 24-hour takeaway method on your story in which the guest has to post Stories on your page and engage with followers for 24 hours. This incredible way of collaboration gives your viewers a new scoop of content while attracting the collaborators’ followers to your profile.

11. Tell a Story with Sequenced Posts

Instead of telling your whole message or event in one Story. Use a storytelling option. For instance, if you are soon launching your new product, post it in one piece. Instead of directly posting the product on a certain date, post your launch process in chunks, like starting with the teaser on the first day, which raises interest among followers. Then, share with BTS of the production the next day. Lastly, post-launch date with the audience. This whole sequenced process keeps the audience in the loop and interested in the product. So when you launch the product, you automatically attract a lot of attention, reach, and engagement.

Final Thoughts

Stories on Instagram serve as an effective way to connect with your followers. It helps you build your brand image, catch users’ attention, and drive more engagement to your content.

Using stickers, animation texts, templates, storytelling posts, collaborations, takeovers, and hashtags in your Stories definitely brings engagement. Well, success always comes with consistency and innovation. Keep experimenting with new ways and techniques to lure the audience to your account.

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