5 Ways To Improve Your Stories
Stories are a cool tool for developing and promoting your brand. Be sure to draw your attention to it if you are not using this type of content yet. And find out how to improve your stories if you have been using them for a long time.
Start With a Storyboard
Publication planning assists in attracting people and expands the quantity of followers. To catch user's attention, 1 article per week is not good. Create posts and stories regularly; do not stop for holidays and vacations. Just do not postpone everything day by day, leaving it to the last hour. It is very effective to use tools to plan content in advance.
Set aside some time at the beginning or the end of the week for a content plan to design stories and write a few posts. Transfer them to your planner, and the scheduled posts will come out according to your timetable.
Create a Story-Specific Style Guide
Take care of the pictures on Instagram more than any other social network. Scheduled posts (articles, reels, and stories) help trace the harmony of their launching even before they are published. Make everything visually pleasing. Always stick to a single design style and create your own features that visitors and new subscribers will remember.
Use Your Brand Fonts and Colors
Build your content strategy based on your brand peculiarities. Follow the steps below:
- Choose an account type. Do you like teaching people? Are you fond of telling about yourself? Do you sell services/goods? Start from your interests. Select the type of account that suits your goals.
- Create content categories. Make stories based on the type of account. If you have a platform for cake realization, post selling stories, but do not forget about other categories so as not to be too intrusive. For example, dilute your content with surveys and helpful tips.
- Create categories for stories. It is better to use the standard 4 types of classes: promo, informative, entertaining, and engagement content.
- Publication time. There is no global point in tracking the time for publication. The story (and the post) somehow does not immediately get to all users in the feed but gets within 12 hours.
- Analyze events from the company life. Delivery, planning meetings, some events that do not seem obvious —note everything. Even if the ceiling has collapsed, you can record a story in a humorous format. Direct events develop much visibility on the example of competitors and bloggers.
- World events, trends, etc. Classic holidays, fashion week, a selection of dresses by different designers, the World Cup, etc. — talk about them in your stories if these events suit your theme.
- Prepare posts and stories for publication in advance. Whether you use an account or a personal blog, using the Instagram planner is one of the best ways to regain your time and keep creative inspiration.
Incorporate Photography
Actively use photos on Instagram. Just follow the rules so as not to violate anyone's rights:
- Try to publish only the pictures that you took yourself. Thus, both property and copyright rights will be respected.
- If you use someone else's pictures, arrange for publication (ask for permission or sign a contract with the photographer). So the property rights will become yours, and you will respect the copyright if you specify the photographer.
- Photos of people are their personal data. People can be posted on Instagram only with their permission. The exception is public places and events (for example, a street).
- Create your design elements with symbols.
No matter how super your text is, it will not be accepted if the visual component disappoints. When people visit your profile, they see not only each individual publication and tons of other live content but also the overall picture of the account. Therefore, working on it also contributes to the development of your Instagram.
Use Stickers and GIFs
GIF stickers, and GIFs in general, are a trending and modern format for visualizing information and transmitting emotions. Stickers in stories are a wildly popular functionality that can also serve your brand. A good sticker is simple, catches the eye, and is often funny. Since these add-ons usually occupy a very small area, it is important to keep them visually clear and defined. Keep in mind how you want your followers (and other users) to use and understand your GIF stickers on Instagram; otherwise, you can achieve not glory but the opposite effect.
Show Users How to Access More Content
Turn off publications annoying your users. Make it so that your followers can see the original post and more content from the one who created it.
Create Branded Highlight Covers
Your Instagram stories will look much better, and it will be easier for your followers to look through it, if you create unique covers. To add a cover, you can create images in Photoshop, Canva or another image editor or application. Their size should be 1080x1920 pixels.
I hope my tips will help, and you will be able to increase the number of your Instagram followers with the help of such an important and effective tool as stories.