IG Stories: 3 Tips To Increase Your Engagement on Social Media

Sure, it's a must these days to have an active social media presence - but are you funneling your efforts into Instagram's hottest feature - IG Stories?! In this blog post, we'll go over 3 tips on how to increase engagement on Instagram and cultivate a community through your DMs. Plus, we'll go over which mistakes to avoid, our favorite apps to use, and more!

If you’re local to Phoenix, I will be speaking on engagement on social media in depth at The Emerald on Wednesday, April 17th from 5:30-7pm!

If you aren’t local to Phoenix, you can still book a social media consultation with me or fill out our Client Application Form to get up to speed on the latest IG Story strategies for your brand.

Understanding the Instagram Algorithm

Let’s give a brief explanation of how the IG Stories “algorithm” works.

1. Instagram makes money from ads

2. Instagram can show you more ads the longer you stay in the app

3. Instagram will prioritize showing you content that it thinks you will engage with (aka - watch the full video/story, read the full caption, post a comment or send a DM) so that you stay longer in the app and overall have a good time in the app so you keep coming back for more

Therefore, when creating content for IG Stories, it’s important to:

1. Show up EVERY DAY & throughout the day so your IG Stories are pushed to the front of the “line”

2. Give a reason for people to watch beginning to end (aka - tell a story)

3. Give a reason for people to engage (ie. swipe up, screenshot, hold to read, vote on the poll, DM me questions, etc.)

Therefore, here are 3 tips to help increase your engagement on social media through IG Stories….

Get Used To Showing Your Face On IG Stories

Did that make you CRINGE!?! Sorry not sorry, friends - IG Stories offers a unique way for us to ENGAGE in REAL TIME with our followers. It’s your chance to show the day-to-day of your brand, the behind-the-scenes, and the imperfect and relatable moments that your followers crave.

The easiest way to show face is to record yourself talking to your audience using your front facing camera - and I even prefer to record in Snapchat (so I can use the cute filters) and save it then upload it to Instagram. I still don’t have the capability to record IG Story clips longer than 15 seconds, but if you do (this is a feature they’re rolling out), you can just record it in IG Stories.

NOW - when you upload these videos to your IG story - ADD. CAPTIONS!!! Explain what you are talking about in the video so that people who listen to IG Stories without sound (I do it all the time lol) can still understand what’s going on. I will SKIP IG stories that don’t do this, and that will decrease your viewership and engagement.

The more people who watch your story from beginning to end without skipping, the more your IG Story will show up at the top of their feed to watch :)

Utilize Social Proof

Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation.

So, to capitalize on this, take a screenshot and share it to your IG stories when…

1. Someone DMs you a FAQ (post the response or share the link to answer their question)

2. Someone tags you in a picture that includes a product you recommended (or your own product) and they bought it

3. Someone DMs you complimenting your product or recent blog or podcast or video and THANK them and show others where they can also get that product or read that post

This shows your IG story viewers that:

1. You are kind & helpful

2. You are supportive

3. Other people like your content and find you useful!

This will encourage other users to engage with you, because it shows other people are already doing it!

Use Apps To Make Your Content V Cool

Don’t be afraid to get down and dirty with some apps. It’s important to stay on brand when hopping onto IG Stories and when designing graphics. My rule of thumb is to stick to one or two fonts and to stick to using your color palette as much as possible. Here are some of my favorite IG Story apps!

1. Functionality

   1. Caption This - You can record yourself talking in the app and it will automatically generate closed captions for your video!

   2. Story Splitter - You can upload a video of any length and it will split it into 15-second long clips so you can upload it to IG Stories

2. Design

   1. Canva - Has the most versatility with design and fonts. I usually design within the desktop version.

   2. StoriesEdit - Planoly’s new app. The designs are BEAUTIFUL and are relatively easy to customize.

   3. Unfold - Has easy templates to add multiple photos to a pretty frame for IG Stories

   4. Adobe Spark - A little bit complicated to figure out, but has beautiful templates.

3. Scheduling - Both of these essentially do the same thing, just depends on which you prefer. You can schedule for a story to go live and the app will send a push notification to your phone for you to upload it to your IG Story

   1. Planoly

   2. Later

We hope this blog post was helpful for you in learning how to increase engagement on social media! We can’t wait to catch your stories on the ‘Gram.

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xx, Becca