Boost Instagram Stories Engagement — Step-by-Step Guide & Transcript

[00:00] What's up beautiful people? Welcome back to my channel. I'm Erin and this is Erin on Demand where we are all about owning our business, owning our lives, and owning our happiness. And today, y'all, we are talking about owning our Instagram stories.

[00:15] I love using Instagram stories. I have so much fun on Instagram stories. And a lot of people give me great feedback saying they love watching my stories, they're fun to watch, and I get so much engagement.

[00:28] way more engagement on my Instagram stories than I do on my actual Instagram posts, my Instagram feed. Like, Instagram stories is my sweet spot. So, I wanted to use this video to kind of address some of the mistakes that a lot of

[00:43] people are making on their Instagram stories and how to boost your Instagram stories engagement, which then will help boost your profile engagement, which then will hopefully help boost your

[00:56] business engagement. So let's get into it. Here's why I love Instagram stories. Instagram, the actual feed, has kind of become saturated with overproduced content,

[01:08] where the pictures look perfect, where the video looks perfect, where it's heavy. Everything is on pin, and everyone feels like everything they post has to be perfect. Instagram stories is kind of that place where you can let your hair down,

[01:21] you can get a lot more personal, and it serves a completely different purpose than the actual Instagram feed. But I find that so many people misuse Instagram stories.

[01:33] The first mistake I see a lot of people make on their Instagram stories is just being boring. Oh my gosh, I sweat past so many stories because you're just not providing any content.

[01:45] Excuse me, any valuable content. There's no interest factor. they don't use any of the elements from that Instagram provides to make you spice up your story you may just not understand how to. So we're going to maybe make this into maybe a two or three

[02:00] part series. Now the second mistake a lot of people make with Instagram stories is that they are very inconsistent with the brand you're creating on your actual Instagram page. Now here's the thing

[02:14] With Snapchat, that's a whole different platform. But with Instagram Stories, I do like to look at it as a slightly different platform because the purpose of Instagram Stories and actual Instagram posts are so different.

[02:29] But you still have to remain somewhat consistent with the brand that you've created on your page. And I think a lot of people let their page take so much precedence over their stories since stories go away quickly.

[02:42] but stories are a huge branding opportunity as well and they can drive so much traffic to your page that you really want to be consistent with the brains created on your page with your stories Now that we got all the things that are kind of you know making our Instagram stories a little

[03:02] bit dry, let's talk about how to make them pop. All right, so the first thing you have to do is tell a story. It is called Instagram stories for a reason. I find that walking your viewers through

[03:16] a process works really, really well. If you are going to a restaurant and trying a restaurant for the first time, instead of just taking a picture of the food, tell us like, this is the first time I'm going to this restaurant. I can't wait to show you guys how, you know, take you along for my

[03:32] experience. Show us what the outside looks like. Show us what the meat looks like. Show us what the food looks like. Maybe show us your first bite. You know, make it a story. Don't just post for the sake of posting. And I think when we can take a step back and think, how can I make a

[03:49] story out of this instead of just a post out of this? That is when you will start to see an increase in your Instagram story engagement and a lot more people going on to your profile. The second thing is to add some variety. It's important to think about how can I tell the story in as many different

[04:06] ways as possible. The cool thing about Instagram stories is they give you so many options on how to have fun with it. Instead of just talking to the camera for 10 clicks straight, you know, maybe you

[04:21] are doing a boomerang for one and adding text on the screen. Maybe you're taking a poll in the next screen asking, what should I order? Maybe in the next screen, you show us what you ended up ordering.

[04:33] Maybe in the next screen, you play some music as you take your first bite in slow motion. I don't know. Whatever, but making it fun for the user to watch because once you've watched those 15 seconds, it can be hard to retain people, especially if every single click is of you just sitting like this talking to the camera.

[04:55] So, Instagram packs Instagram stories with different filters, different things to use, boomerangs, stickers, gifs, all of those things for you to take advantage to keep people on your stories longer.

[05:10] So, add variety. Figure out, before you just talk to the camera, figure out, is there another way that I can say the same things but in a different, more interesting, more engaging way?

[05:22] Okay, the third thing is use Instagram stories for instant feedback. All right, so there are so many options. You can text posts. You can get questions. A lot of times when I run out of YouTube ideas, I just go on there and ask, like, what kind of videos do you guys want to see next?

[05:40] Or how should I do my hair for this Instagram video? Which ideas for this one Should I wear it in a ponytail Should I wear it down Should I curl it Just getting my audience more engaged more invested in me

[05:53] There's more of a chance that now they're going to end up watching my YouTube video or clicking on my profile to see what decision I made or whatever. It's a great way to get your audience involved and get some instant feedback.

[06:07] The fourth thing I recommend is adding locations, hashtags, and tagging in your Instagram stories. So if you are at a business, tag them. Or if you did mention a special person in your Insta stories, tag them because then they may see it and repost it.

[06:26] Or if you use a hashtag or if you use location, a lot of locations and hashtags also create Instagram stories. So if someone is going Outback and you tag Outback, when they click on Outback's story, your story or clip may show up in Outback's story.

[06:45] And that's a great way to drive traffic to your Instagram. So make sure that you optimize in every way that you can with tagging, hashtagging, and location.

[06:57] The fifth thing I recommend doing, and this sounds very simple but it's very effective, is adding text onto just about every screen of your Instagram story. If you're doing a face-to-camera video,

[07:11] a lot of people don't like to watch those because they don't know what you're about to say. I know it sounds weird, but if you add text onto the screen and kind of give people insight on what you're talking about,

[07:23] by the time they read it, they're already hearing most of what you're saying and they're probably going to stick around. So just try to add more than one element whenever you can.

[07:35] The next thing I recommend is to keep something in your story. Even if you haven't recorded something, share somebody else's something. The more you have things in your story, it pops your story into the front of people's

[07:47] feeds. So just try to at least post something on your stories on a daily basis to keep that 24-hour thing going, okay? Because when I go to people's profiles, I look at the highlights, I do look at the posts, but I also look at the story.

[08:05] And if there's no story, that's kind of you're missing an opportunity for someone to even further engage with you. So that's one thing I do recommend is try to always have something in your story.

[08:17] And then my last thing is to share stuff. I think we get so consumed with only sharing what we do. You don't always have to only share your own content. If you're an entrepreneur and you are really inspired by someone's video or another person's post, share that with your audience.

[08:36] It just going to keep building trust between you and your audience because let face it there are so many people who are doing the same thing as you there are so many ways that we can find them cross is a great way to

[08:50] build um build a following and perhaps they're going to share that you shared their thing on instagram stories on their stories and that leads people to your page as well so you know it's just

[09:03] It's all about having fun but also being intentional and not letting the fact that Instagram stories are so quick and so easy to post and so much fun that you kind of fall off brand and don't use it to say anything.

[09:17] It's not so much about being so brandy, you know. Okay, that's not a good word. It's not so much about trying to be so stickler and on brand. And I'm not saying that you can't deviate and have fun and show us the cool things you're doing even if it has nothing to pertain to, you know, your brand.

[09:37] If you like to roller skate and you go skating on Saturday night, go ahead, boo, even if you're, you know, a social media manager. But tell us something. Bring us in.

[09:49] Make us feel like we're a part of the experience and help us to be more engaged with you. So that's all I'm saying is that it's not all about maintaining this brand and this image, but it's more about using your stories to tell a story to personally connect with your audience, which then in turn will, by default, cause people to go to your page and cause people to be more interested in you and your business.

[10:16] So it's all about learning how to package your personality in a way that's consumable for other people. all right guys that's all that I have but I'm going to actually do a part two of this video

[10:32] I don't know if it'll be the next video that I upload but I will do a part two on some Instagram hacks so I will actually open my app and show you guys some cool things that not a lot of people know that you can do in Instagram there are so many freaking things in that app in Instagram

[10:51] stories that we just don't know are there so I'm super excited to show that with you give this video a thumbs up if you want to see that video the part two if you are interested in this kind of content all things entrepreneur I'm not

[11:05] your average girl boss y'all I like to you know spice things up a bit if you like this type of content make sure you like this video make sure you subscribe and hit the notification bell I would love for you to be a part of my internet

[11:18] home and join this fabulous community of amazing go-getters if you have any questions or comments leave them below and I am super active in my comments so I'll make sure that I respond and until next time I will see you guys later bye