By Kaleigh Glaza
Instagram’s growing success and influence (experts estimate it will reach 1 billion users in 2018) has led it to be the social media platform to be on. Whether you’re an individual, brand, event, cause or otherwise, Instagram can help you tell your story and grow your reach.
One feature of Instagram that has grown significantly in popularity in the last year is the Instagram Story. This allows users post photos and videos that vanish after 24 hours, similar to Snapchat. Content shared to stories won’t appear on your profile grid or in the main Instagram feed, but will instead appear in a rolling bar at the very top of your Home screen.
To view someone’s story, you just need to tap on their profile photo in the top of your feed, and their story will appear full-screen, showing you all of the content they’ve posted in the last 24 hours, playing chronologically from oldest to newest.
Though Instagram’s main algorithm changes frequently, Instagram Stories have remained almost completely time-based, showing the most recent post from someone you follow FIRST in the rolling bar. This means that the more you post on Instagram Stories, regardless of the algorithm, the more likely it is that your brand’s Story―and message―will reach your followers.
Instagram Stories are also the perfect opportunity to show behind-the-scenes, more personalized looks at your brand or cause. All in all, they are an easy-to-use posting platform that should be integrated into your overall social strategy. There are ways to make the most of this strategy, and make it work for your brand to the fullest extent.
Here’s how to use some of Instagram Stories’ features in your business:
- Share Posts from Your Feed to Stories: This optimizes and increases the reach of your Instagram posts with ease.
- Instagram Live with Friends: Instagram Stories has a Live feature, much like Facebook, and they debuted a new feature that makes it possible to bring a friend into your Live broadcast. This will allow your Live video to appear on their page, as well. It increases your reach, and can add some interesting variety to your page.
- Include Variety: Instagram Stories allow you to post video, Boomerangs, videos in reverse and even add GIFs to your photos! Variety is important to keep your feed interesting and inspiring.
- Switch on Sharing: Make sure your posts are shareable! Head to your Story settings (tap the icon in the upper left corner of the camera screen) and switch on “Allow Sharing.” This will let anyone who views your Story share it as a direct message with others, expanding your reach.
- Save Your Posts: You can set your Instagram Stories account to automatically save all of your photos and videos (if you don’t, they disappear after 24 hours). To do this, go to your settings tab in the upper left corner and move the toggle for “save shared stories” to the right.
Stay up to date on the latest offerings from Instagram, simply by using the app! Their algorithm, settings and add-ons are constantly changing, so that means every day is a new social media adventure.
As Senior Social Media Coordinator, Kaleigh loves getting to interact with participants in real-time. Spending her days on Instagram caters to her love of photography, and she enjoys working on multiple events to really make the most of her Event 360 experience. In her free time, she loves exploring and eating her way through her hometown of Chicago.
