Use These Powerful Instagram Story Features To Build An Authentic Audience Connection
In a time of physical distancing, Instagram Stories can help brands foster real connections with customers and other key audiences. Not only do Stories help to build a more authentic connection with your audience, but they can also help you keep them engaged.
About 62% of people say they’ve become more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in their stories. With 500 million people watching Instagram Stories daily, implementing Stories into your social media content is an easy way to reach your audience and allows them the opportunity to interact with your brand. Stories are most effective and gain more visibility when the content is creative, interesting or unexpected.
Interactivity is key
Keeping up with your followers is so important – especially during this time of social distancing. Instagram provides tools that make it easy for you to not only keep up with but also engage with your audience. Stickers are fun visual add-ons that help connect you to your audience. These stickers come in many varieties and can be used for different purposes. 60% of businesses that utilize Instagram Stories use an interactive element in the story to playfully interact with their follower base.
Stickers that are interactive can help boost a brand’s audience engagement while fostering a personal connection with followers. One of the best ways to get to know your followers is by talking to them and simply starting to ask questions. Interactive story features make it fun and easy to ask these questions and receive answers. The three most popular interactive sticker types that receive the most engagement are the question, poll and, quiz stickers.
Engagement with the question sticker
The Question Sticker is a fun new way to start conversations with your followers while allowing you to get to know them better. This sticker allows you to pose an open-ended question or prompt that your followers can then tap to reply to. The responses to the prompt will be displayed in the story’s viewers list, with the option to anonymously share the responses publically in an additional story. Some ways to successfully utilize this feature are to answer product questions and follower Q&A.
Starbucks effectively used this feature to ask its followers what their favorite drink orders are. When their audience responded to the question it provided them with both content ideas as well as customer insights. Using this feature can be a valuable tool for gaining insights, feedback and suggestions from your followers.
Listening with the poll feature
When using Instagram polls it is important to ask both the right question while letting your audience know that you are listening to them. Instagram polls give you the chance to interact with your followers and find out what they care about. These responses to the polls can help generate new content ideas from the insight gained. Results from the polls give you valuable insight into your audience’s interests and preferences. Learning about your audience’s preferences can help your brand generate content that will personally resonate with their interests.
In addition to posting polls as part of organic content, Instagram now allows for brands to use the poll sticker on paid Instagram Story ads. This feature allows you to pay to get answers to your questions while engaging a wider audience. When users see the ad, they can tap on one of the two poll options and the answers will be recorded for you. This ad feature also gives you the option to create a custom audience and re-engage the people who answered your poll. Next time you’re thinking about your social media strategy and paid advertisements, consider using the poll feature.
Playing games using the quiz feature
The Quiz Sticker in stories allows you to ask your audience quiz questions to test their knowledge. This feature allows you to write a question and list a few potential answers. Like the popular question and poll options, quizzes allow for audience interaction with a brand in a fun game format. The quiz sticker allows you to pre-select the correct answer. When someone selects one out of the four options for the answer, they will immediately see if they were right or wrong.
If you aren’t sure what to use the quiz feature for consider asking questions about your brand or products that would spark the interest of your audience. Some examples of questions you can ask are: “Guess our best-selling product” or, “Guess when we are launching our new product.” Engaging your audience in a fun game style allows your followers to stay engaged and interested in what your brand has to offer.
Flackable is a national, full-service public relations agency headquartered in Philadelphia. To learn more about Flackable, please visit www.flackable.com.
