Launched in 2010, Instagram started as a mobile photo-sharing application that malfunctioned quite often.

But in recent years, mainly boosted by the lockdown boredom caused by the pandemic, the app gained explosive popularity and its various features, like Instagram stories, became an avenue for expressing various things and even promoting certain products. 

Many brands that were suffering due to prolonged inactivity suddenly found a place to actively promote their products.

So What Is an Instagram Story?

For someone unfamiliar with Snapchat (as the whole concept of the app summarizes Instagram stories), it’s a popular mobile app that lets users exchange photos and videos that disappear after a short period. 

A person’s brand’s Instagram Stories are kept distinct from their regular Instagram feed. As a result, they won’t have to worry about oversaturating their audience if they construct a tale and upload it frequently. 

People can’t “like” or comment on posts like they can on other social networking platforms. As a result, part of the pressure is relieved, allowing brands to focus on providing outstanding content rather than worrying about the number of likes and comments they receive. However, if you are concerned about the fewer likes on your post, you can always try out MegaFamous’s free trial for likes.

So, let us now look at the best five strategies brands can use to leverage Instagram stories for their profit.

How Brands Can leverage Instagram Stories

1. Special Offers

Instagram keeps on rolling out new updates frequently. Special offers system is done in the following ways:

• In marketing and advertising, scarcity is one of the most potent motivators. It pushes buyers immediately from the shopping or deliberation phase to the purchasing phase, which is quite effective. It creates the FOMO effect. This scarcity is created by Instagram Stories by default, but a company must know how to make use of it.
• Creating a tale with a special offer is one of the simplest ways to accomplish this. Post photographs, videos, and other related information, and emphasize the point that the deal will expire once the tale has ended.
• Viewers can benefit from the promotion by clicking on a link in the company’s Instagram bio that leads to a landing page.
• They can also be asked to claim the offer by sending a message through Instagram, which will connect the customer with the sales staff.

There is no better way of familiarizing tentative customers with the company products than by attracting their attention to their too good to be true deals. Once they start liking the brand there would be no need to give offers as the human addiction will push them to continue consumption of their products. 

2. Covering Important Events

Events are yet another way to promote a newly budding organization that is yet to make its mark in the market. It not only promotes employee participation but also makes the consumers keep track of the brand activities that will ultimately lead to greater exposure to the organization. 

But covering any event is no joke, it must be done correctly to attract consumer attention. The enormous amount of content provided on other social media platforms can cause audiences to get overwhelmed.

Instagram Stories, on the other hand, only permits team members to post to one story. The tale is kept clean and ordered by automatically removing old content. Hence promoting any brand event to increase the exposure of the company can be easily done through Instagram stories. Thus, Instagram is a convenient platform to promote company events in an organized manner.

Using this feature, Deloitte Digital recently provided a behind-the-scenes peek at Advertising Age’s “Women to Watch in 2016” edition. Mini-interviews with keynote speakers and brief excerpts of the talks were featured on the company’s Instagram story.

3. Hyping the Latest Launch

This is probably the oldest trick in the book tried and tested by brands all over the world. Creating a buzz over any new product the company is about to launch helps in increasing sales merely because people are curious to know if the product was worth all the fuzz. 

Before Instagram, companies took the help of conventional methods of advertising to achieve this, but now with social media, the task is easier and more lucrative. An organization can promote its products in the following ways:

• They begin by creating a sense of anticipation. 
• Then collaborate with a few key influencers in the industry and drip-feed little snippets of information leading up to the debut of your new product. 
• Give each influencer hired for promoting a separate piece of information.
• Finally, create an Instagram story as the launch date approaches and reveal small bits of information about the new product’s benefits.
• The rest is done by the inquisitive nature of human beings.

4. Brand Transparency

Allowing customers to discover more about the company workers to personalize the brand can be extremely beneficial for them.   

NASA, for example, utilized Instagram Stories to introduce its astronauts while displaying fascinating rockets and space equipment. The firm was able to promote diversity among employees and build more interaction with the audience by featuring individual employees and revealing personal data about them.

We Work, a company that creates unique workspace ideas, used Instagram Stories to introduce its audience to the people who work in their facilities. Tracy, the individual who built the company’s new website, was recently honored. We Work humanized its business culture and encouraged creative workspaces through the story.

5. Preparing Q and A’s

There is no better way to popularize a brand than by understanding its target audience. This helps to improve upon its quality and in the process show accountability. This can be done in the following ways:

• Marketers are responsible for determining their target audience’s common issues. Even if they think they know their audience well, the customers may have queries the company hasn’t considered. 
• To find out what topics are most important to the target audience right now, the organization should resort to surveying its consumers across all social media channels.
• After they’ve gathered all the responses, they then browse for commonalities and set up an Instachat, which is essentially a live chat with the audience.
• Finally, they promote the event on social media and take meticulous notes on what was said during the talk. In an Instagram story, they share key thoughts, photographs, and videos relating to the subject.

Two Popular Instagram Marketing Techniques

Below are two strategies that successful marketing departments often use on Instagram to promote their businesses.

1. Staging an Instagram takeover

The Instagram takeover technique which is slowly gaining popularity is quite confusing to some, so let’s take a look into how it is done.

Marketers devote a significant amount of time to connecting with and promoting content on various social media platforms. Using a “social media takeover”, on the other hand, implies that you pass over all of your hard work to a stranger for the next 24 hours. But why is that?

In a nutshell, this method is incredibly effective and provides a lot of bang for your dollars. Begin by strategically identifying an influencer with a similar audience and online clout. Promote the time and day of the takeover, as well as the audience’s benefits.

But make sure to create a goal for yourself right away. For instance, you might want to expand your Instagram audience to shift some of those people from social media into your sales funnel. Define your objective, collaborate with the right influencer, and devise a strategy that benefits both of you.

2. Letting the Audience Speak Through the Stories 

Allowing customers to access the company account and share their opinions through Instagram stories can be achieved in the following way

• Make a list of a few possible theme ideas. 
• Then, using several social media sites, present your ideas to your audience and invite them to vote. 
• Request that your audience like or comment on their favorite idea.
• Make an Instagram story out of the most popular notion, complete with photographs, videos, and helpful solutions to your audience’s problems. Promote the story on social media, emphasizing that it will only be available for the next 24 hours.

This method may appear confusing at first but it has proven to be effective in increasing brand values on more than one occasion. 

Why Is Instagram Marketing Important?

Living in the digital age it is no secret that social media marketing is an absolute necessity in promoting any product. But some might wonder why Instagram is such an important platform for promotion. This is because of the below key reasons. 

Instagram Is Known for Its Unique Story-Telling

People are fascinated by stories. We’re drawn to people who have a natural gift for recounting dramatic or funny events. Human nature requires us to tell stories. And, from a business standpoint, presenting a compelling tale is an excellent approach to eliciting an emotional response from your audience.

Reaching the Masses

Instagram, which has over 700 million monthly users, provides businesses with a big potential audience. When it comes to Instagram, hashtags are the most effective approach to get your content seen by the appropriate people. 

Just make sure you’re using hashtags that your target audience is looking for. If you’re ready to invest some time and money, you may also design tailored adverts to reach even more potential buyers.

Conclusion 

Now you’re ready to delve into Instagram with all of these suggestions and techniques on how brands can use Instagram stories to enhance sales. Make sure you use all of these suggestions, as well as your imagination, to achieve the best outcomes.