Instagram isn’t considered one of the best marketing tools, but that is because the larger companies have a hard time breaking its formula with raw capital alone. They have to pay massive amounts to influencers on Instagram to receive far less value for money than if they paid Facebook or Twitter influencers. As a result, smaller businesses are able to sneak into the public view and make some gains on a brand-by-brand level. Here are a few Instagram features that favour smaller businesses.
Create a Wall of Branding Messages
Put simply, you can turn your Instagram account into a big repository of your branding and marketing messages. All you have to do is put your evergreen stuff in there, and it will still be interesting to the people who visit. Added to which, it helps spread your brand message on social media.
You Can Buy Attention Three Ways
These days, you can pay for Instagram promotion through their marketing systems and tools. This is expensive and fairly inefficient. You can pay influencers and celebrities to promote your brand, but that is even more expensive. Or, you can go online and buy Instagram accounts from a company like Fameswap, and then exploit the accounts of other people who have already built up their audience.
Test Your Ads Through Instagram Stories
This is a trick as old as time. You can run all your most shaky ads through Instagram to see how people react. Oddly, if people do not react at all, it probably means your advertisement is okay for mainstream use but may need improvement. Nevertheless, taking a few chances and running a few risky ads through Instagram is rarely a bad thing, even if you don’t gather much data.
You Can Ask Your Customers For Input
As with all social media, you can ask your followers and potential customers for input on your services, your products, your brands, your offers and your social media posts. As a smaller business, you can be more interactive and authentic with your customers.
Watch and Maybe Even Copy Your Competitors
You can copy your competitors posts, ideas and sales. You can check out what works for them, and then make your own version. The great thing is that there is nothing they can do about it. Plus, you don’t have to try their methods right away, you copy their stuff, make your own, make it better, and then release it when the time is right.
Try Instagram Live For Certain Promotions
There are certain companies that are able to make the most of Instagram live. Haunted houses are pretty popular at the moment, and there are times of the year when fireworks are popular too. If you are running events that are live themselves, like live standup comedy, then you can do very well with the Instagram Live features. There are even people making unboxing videos of their own products, so you could try that too. They seem to be oddly popular for unknown reasons.
You Can Upload Videos of 60 Minutes
If you run a business account that is verified, you can run videos of up to 60 minutes. If you have the sort of content or even the types of services that warrant a 60 minute run-time, then you have an advantage over all the accounts that cannot post 60 minute videos.
Get Yourself Listed on Google
If you have a fully fleshed out Instagram profile and a well maintained Instagram account, then you will appear on Google when people are searching for your business. It doesn’t have a big impact, but it is one more Google result in your favour, possibly ranking above the Instagram profile of your competitors.
Facebook and Instagram have been incredibly effective marketing channels for quite some time. Now, brands can also leverage the Stories feature on both platforms to create deeper connections with users. Stories often offer more interactive options than regular social posts, and companies can use this to their advantage by creating unique content that captures the attention of consumers as they scroll through their feed.
As with any social media marketing, coming up with a solid strategy is the key to seeing the strongest returns on investments in this particular area. When it comes to utilizing the Stories feature on either platform, brands have a wide spectrum of effective approaches to choose from. Here, 10 members of Forbes Agency Council explore some of the most innovative ways companies can leverage the content they share via Stories to better connect with consumers.
1. Maintain The ‘Human Touch’ To Make Stories More Approachable
The key to making the most of Stories is maintaining the “human touch.” With so many interactive features, such as polls, questions, custom stickers, etc., Stories can be more approachable and fun than an average post. You can also get away with toning down your brand voice and introducing a more laid-back vibe, while still delivering eye-catching and informational content. – Russ Williams, Archer Malmo
2. Use The Shopping Feature And Post Time-Sensitive Promotions
Instagram now allows brands to use a shopping feature on their Stories. It will let the audience see the product details and price, and if they press it, it will take them to the page on the website where they can purchase the product. Stories disappear after 24 hours, so brands can post time-sensitive content, such as promotions that their audience can’t miss. – Jonas Muthoni, Deviate Agency
3. Create Stories That Enhance Your Online Customer Relationships
If you think of Stories as an extension of the relationship you have with your customers on Facebook and Instagram, note the things that attract the most engagement on your pages. Use this information to create Stories that serve as “teaser” content to increase the fun factor or to show one aspect of your brand in a playful way. Or, cross-pollinate Clubhouse activity with your Instagram stories. Authenticity is key. – Megan Devine, d.trio marketing group
4. Use Paid Advertising To Extend The Reach Of Your Stories
One great way for a brand to leverage Facebook and Instagram Stories is to create and post vertical-friendly content as their Stories, then promote those Stories to larger audiences using paid advertising. In doing so, the brand’s Stories are not only available for longer than 24 hours, but can also then be shown to new, relevant demographics. – Jonathan Durante, Expandify Marketing Inc
5. Use Interactive Features To Gain Audience Insights
Stories are an effective way for brands to connect with their audiences in real time. Instagram and Facebook Stories have features that allow brands to gain insights directly from their followers. Try using tools such as polls, question stickers and quizzes to gain an understanding of your audience and immediate feedback on their preferences and insights. – Jason Wulfsohn, AUDIENCEX
6. Expand On Other Social Posts To Extend The Life Of Creatives
A Facebook or Instagram story can be used to expand on other social posts from the brand to extend the life of a single creative. If the original post is about an article, a story can highlight multiple text excerpts from the article with imagery to add more description. A story can also show a sequence that led up to the final image of the highlighted post and provide context and background. – Jessica Hawthorne-Castro, Hawthorne LLC
7. Let Influencers Collaborate On Or Take Over Your Stories
Stories are like a conveyor belt of content. What starts out as innocent scrolling through a friend’s content quickly turns into a steady flow of Instagram Stories and advertisements that can be viewed with just a swipe up. Influencer collaboration and takeovers are a great way to use Stories, along with polls and questions that encourage interaction. – Joe Gagliese, VIRAL NATION
8. Tell Unique Stories Through Carousel Ads
Using carousel ads in the Stories format on Facebook or Instagram is a great way to tell a unique story through three back-to-back images or videos. Businesses can use these to share three parts of a story or follow an “attention, benefit, action” format to increase performance. Story ads work amazingly because they appear in vertical format and take up the entire mobile phone screen, ensuring that the ad is seen. – Brian Meert, AdvertiseMint
9. Chop A Larger Piece Of Content Into Smaller Pieces
Take a larger piece of content and chop it into smaller pieces. For example, a recorded Facebook or Instagram Live stream could be chopped down into a Reel on Instagram, Stories on both platforms and even a regular News Feed post. As far as specific content for Stories, posting inspirational quotes, customer testimonials, quizzes, polls and other peoples’ relevant content can all work to create a solid narrative. – Christopher Tompkins, The Go! Agency
10. Give Viewers A Behind-The-Scenes Look At Your Culture
Facebook and Instagram Stories offer a great way to show a behind-the-scenes look into what’s happening at the company. This will give viewers a look into your company culture and give them a sense of belonging and transparency. You can take it one step further and start your own company show on Stories with live streams. – Stefan Katanic, Veza Digital
Thinking outside the box can get you those sweet likes.
o one would blame you for thinking Instagram’s customization options for Stories are somewhat limited. You can add text, a GIF, draw something, and plug in a tune. But when used in creative ways, these tools are more than enough to create stories that’ll capture your followers’ attention.
Periods can become polka dots or squares to compose a trendy, geometric background for your pictures. Dashes can turn into lines, GIFs can create flashy effects, and the right colours can disguise the zillion hashtags you used to ensure your post is noticed.
There’s a plethora of possibilities. These are just a few to get you started.
Keep those hashtags hidden
If you want your posts to go beyond your tight-knit group of friends, you need to make them more social. There’s no official guidebook on exactly how to do this, but users have picked up a few things after years of experimenting. The main takeaway is that the more social elements you add to your story, the more traction it’ll gain in general searches. This includes mentions, location tags, and, of course, hashtags.
The more of these labels, the better, but nothing is less aesthetically pleasing than a bunch of words you can barely read. The solution is simple: hide them. The algorithm will pick them up even if people can’t see them. This works for mentions too, and there are three ways to do it.
Drag them beyond the margins
Your Instagram stories have some space beyond the margins of your screen; it’s not much, but it’s a great spot to hide things.
1. Use the text tool to type all the hashtags you need. If you’re using too many, consider doing it in batches.
2. Using your index finger and thumb, shrink the text pieces as small as you can.
3. Drag the text to the right or left until they’re no longer noticeable. Repeat if you have more text you need to hide.
Hide them behind your post
If you’re sharing a post from your feed or timeline, you can paste that on top of the hashtags to hide them away.
1. Choose a post you want to add to your story and use the paper plane icon to share it. Tap Add to your story on the dialog that pops up from the bottom of the screen.
2. Use the text tool to type the hashtags you want to use. You can do this multiple times if you want.
3. If necessary, adjust the size of the text with your thumb and index finger to make sure it’s smaller than the picture of the post you’re sharing.
4. Drag the text on top of the post and then tap the post to bring it to the front. Your hashtags will no longer be visible.
Camouflage your hashtags
No one will see your hashtags if they’re in the same colour as your background.
1. Choose a post you want to add to your story and use the paper plane icon to share it. Tap Add to your story on the dialog that pops up from the bottom of the screen.
2. Select the drawing tool (the squiggly line at the top of your screen) and choose a colour.
3. Press on any space not covered by the post you’re sharing to set a background colour. To finish, tap the check mark in the top right corner of the screen.
4. Select the text tool and type your hashtags.
5. Tap on the colour wheel at the top of the screen and select the same colour you used for your background colour. If you need to, use the eyedropper tool in the bottom left corner of the screen to select the exact shade. Tap the check mark in the top right corner to finish.
6. Drag your hashtags into the space around the post you’re sharing. If necessary, use your index finger and thumb to modify the size of the text.
Hide the music player sticker
You have many options when you use a Spotify sticker on an Instagram story. Tap it once, and you’ll see the song’s cover art. Tap it again and again, and you’ll see the lyrics displayed in different ways. The default is a white label sticker that, no matter how much you try minimizing it, most of the time looks like an eyesore. Plus, the artist and name of the song are already listed under your username, so there’s no need for it if you want your followers to know what song you’re playing. You can simply stash it beyond the edge of the screen—noticing a trend?
1. First, add a music sticker. Keep the default display option and figure out the exact snippet of the song you want to feature on your story. Tap the check mark in the top right corner to finish.
2. Then use your thumbs to flip the sticker to a vertical position. You’ll see a yellow dotted guideline appear to make sure it’s perfectly parallel to the sides of your screen.
3. Use your thumbs to shrink it as much as possible.
4. Drag the sticker to the side of your screen. If you still see a thin white line, move it up and down to hide it completely.
Create a flashing effect using GIF stickers
Some glittery fun.Sandra Gutierrez G.
With this trick, you’ll turn your Instagram stories into a flashing sign to catch your followers’ attention. You’ll need to perfect your free-hand drawing and writing skills, but if you’re already an enthusiast, there’s a lot you can do with this technique.
1. Open Instagram and tap the plus sign at the top of the screen. Then tap Story at the bottom.
2. Tap the shutter button (it doesn’t matter what kind of pic you took) and then touch the sticker tool (it’s the third one from the right at the top of the screen). There, tap the GIF option and search for something flashy. Words like “flash” and “glitter” yield strobe-rrific results. Keep in mind that bright, flashing effects can provoke discomfort, headaches, or even seizures in some people.
3. Using your thumb and index finger, enlarge the GIF until the flashy or animated part covers the entire screen.
4. Hit the download button (looks like a downward arrow) on the top of your screen to save the story to your device.
5. Tap the X button in the top left corner of the screen to close the story editor and choose Discard on the popup prompt.
6. You’ll be redirected back to the camera view of the Instagram stories editor. There, tap the Gallery button in the bottom left corner of the screen and select the story you just saved.
7. Open the drawing options, choose a colour, and press anywhere on the screen to paint over the video.
8. Choose the eraser tool (at the top of your screen, third from the right) and use it as a brush to delete the top layer of colour you just created. As you write or draw, you’ll reveal the GIF underneath, and the finished product will start flashing before you.
Use characters as design elements
When a platform only gives you basic tools, you have to get creative. And that’s exactly what Instagram users all over the world have done by turning characters such as dashes, periods, and other punctuation marks into design elements.
Unfortunately, this is a technique that you may not be able to take full advantage of on Android. If you have an iPhone, though, the possibilities are endless, and the results will mainly depend on how you use them. For now, this is how you start.
Add lines and blocks to your Instagram story
Using dashes and periods you can make a film reel to feature your favourite photos.Sandra Gutierrez G.
1. Open the text tool and select your font. The one you choose will depend on what you want to do. Type a period and see if it’s a circle or a square, and choose the style that best aligns with your idea. If you want to make a line, type a hyphen or a dash.
2. Tap the check mark button in the top right corner to exit the tool.
3. Use your thumbs to make the text as big as you want it to be. This is where the waters of possibility separate depending on what phone you have. When trying to enlarge these elements, Android users will hit a relatively small size limit. This limitation keeps characters looking like characters instead of geometric shapes, defeating the purpose of this technique. As an alternative, Android users can use the highlight function when typing (the third button at the top of your screen; it looks like an A with sparkles) to make characters bigger.
4. Drag and position the element where you want it and change the colour if you’d like.
Superimpose text to give it volume
Plain text is boring. 3D text is way cooler.
1. Use the text tool and type what you want to say. Tap the check mark button in the upper right corner to finish.
2. Repeat Step 1 as many times as necessary.
3. Use your thumbs to enlarge all pieces of text and make sure they are the exact same size. A great way to help you do this is to use Instagram’s automatic guidelines that appear when you centre the text.
4. Change the colours of the text as you like. You can do a rainbow or a gradient of colours. If you want them to match a photo or post, use the eyedropper tool.
5. Align your text to create a volume effect. This requires some practice, but you can start by placing them on top of each other and moving the upper layers of text slightly to the right or left. The piece of text on the very top should be the farthest away from the one on the bottom. Don’t despair if it takes a long time to achieve the desired effect, but we recommend you don’t try to align 20 layers of text on your first try. Start small.
Add pictures to your Instagram story straight from your phone
Stickers and GIFs are fun, but you can paste your own pics, too. If you’re promoting a post with multiple photos, this is a great way to display them in all their glory.
1. Select the photo you want to use from your device. Tap the Share button and choose Copy. If you don’t see it, this is because it’s not possible with some versions of Android. All iPhone users can use this feature.
If you have stock Android, you’ll only be able to do this by using a browser to copy images directly from the web, as Google’s operating system doesn’t allow you to copy an image as a sharing option. If you want to do this, you can go to Google Images or directly to the website featuring the photo you want to use, press on it to select it, and tap Copy.
2. In the Instagram story editor, open the text tool and paste the photo as if it were text. Now you have a sticker you can drag and resize as you please.
While the impact of Stories is variable across the different social media platforms, it’s hard to deny the rising influence of the form more generally, and the way in which its changing user behaviors, much as Facebook has long predicted.
Underlining this, Facebook, in the accompanying earnings call following its Q4 report announcement, has reported that Instagram Stories, its most successful Stories option to date, is now being used by half a billion people every single day.
That means that Facebook now sees around 1.25b people using the Stories options across its familyof apps daily – which is a billion more users than Snapchat, the originator of the Stories format, has in total.
As noted, the updated Stories usage count reflects the rising influence of the option – if you’ve not considered how your business can use the Stories format in your social media marketing efforts, it’s likely worth giving it some thought. As more people become increasingly attuned to the layout and style of Stories, their expectations for content is changing, – and with Facebook maintaining a steady flow of Stories updates, it is becoming the primary sharing and engagement option for many.
Facebook now clearly owns Stories – which is not overly great news for Snap, but it’s not the only trick up Snapchat’s sleeve either. I mean, Snapchat has some issues to iron out, and it is under ever-increasing pressure to come up with new tools, but the Stories battle, really, was over long ago. If anything, the broader adoption of the format may help other platforms, as users look for the same on each surface (note: even LinkedIn is trying out the Stories format).
In addition to the updated user count, Facebook also noted that it’s working on more private sharing options for its Stories tools, while Instagram specifically will soon see new commerce and shopping features.
Facebook has long held that Stories are the future of social sharing, and whether by trend or by design, that does now appear to be coming true. Again, if you haven’t considered the potential of Stories within your planning, it may be time to give them a look.
Asos has singled out the performance of Instagram Stories in its marketing mix, saying the number of people viewing its content on the platform has almost doubled in just six months.
The online retailer today (11 April) reported stellar sales for the six months to 28 February, noting a 10% rise in half-year profits to £29.9m as sales jumped 27% to £1.13bn compared with the same period in the previous year.
On a call with analysts, chief executive Nick Beighton praised the Instagram-effect, saying the Facebook-owned platform was now more popular among its core 20-something customer base than Facebook and as such the business had maintained its investment in its “relevant, emerging content formats” including Stories.
The brand’s content on the site was viewed over 30m times while videos were viewed more than 52m times, up from 40m in the previous half of the year.
“When we recognise technology that can help our business, we fold in pretty quick,” Beighton said.
Now that its convinced on the value of Stories, the current tool under the spotlight is Instagram’s shopping-enabled adverts, which launched widely at the beginning of this year.
“On one level [Instagram Shopping] could turbo charge the experience for 20-somethings but on another level it could be a real threat,” admitted Beighton.
“We do know Instagram is one of the biggest channels for our customers, it’s much bigger than Facebook, so I’d go with the positive and think about how we can make it more intuitive and friction free for our customers.”
Its experiments on the digital channel come amid a wider review of its marketing costs. It didn’t give an exact figure but as a percentage of sales it stood at 5% versus 5.3% in the previous period. The savings were made as a result of “digital marketing efficiencies and a higher return on advertising spend,” said Beighton.
Though admitting the brand is on “every conceivable marketing channel”, Beighton said it is venturing offline, especially in other European markets. In the UK it ran its first out of home campaign to launch its Face and Body and Activewear lines while in France it took to TV and cinema for the first time with promising results.
“The combination of TV and cinema aren’t immediately relevant to the 20-something market in the UK but they are in the French market. But it’s an experiment,” he said.
In the US meanwhile, its PPC ad spend is under scrutiny with Beighton saying the rates “are up pretty dramatically” on various terms, though he didn’t go into detail on how it would mitigate that cost.
Overall, he said continued investments are enabling strong engagement levels across its customer base. Site visits increased by 25% year-on-year; average order frequency improved by 8%; average basket value increased by 2% alongside a 10 base point improvement in conversion.
Active customers are now at 16.5 million, representing a 17% increase since last year.
In 2018, every business knows that having a strong social media presence is no longer optional. It’s the most powerful tool available to develop relationships with consumers and to build brands.
But the world of social media never stands still. It’s not just a competition for likes and followers anymore – today, the most forward thinking businesses are concerned with getting consumers to engage with their message in a meaningful way.
While Facebook might be what springs to mind when you think of social media, newly emerging platforms should not be overlooked, particularly if you are trying to tap into the international market.
These are some of the social media platforms that growing businesses are embracing in 2018.
Facebook ads
(Image: Getty)
Facebook is changing. At the start of 2018, its relationship with businesses changed to “it’s complicated” after CEO Mark Zuckerburg announced that posts from friends and family would be prioritised in users’ newsfeeds over posts from publishers and brands.
The idea behind this is to make Facebook a more positive experience, by encouraging users to have more conversations and connections with peers. But it’s bad news for brands, who already faced an uphill struggle achieving organic reach.
Facebook ads work on a self-service format (Image: Facebook)
With this in mind, B2C businesses should investigate Facebook paid ads. They’ve widened massively in scope – Facebook Messenger and Carousel ads have recently been launched, for example – and offer the advantages of being self-service, highly targeted, budget flexible, and measurable.
LinkedIn
In 2018 businesses can’t afford to get left behind when it comes to social media (Image: Ju Stocker/Getty)
For the B2B market, LinkedIn is where you are likely to reach your most engaged audience. It offers various marketing opportunities, including:
Sponsored Content – this can be targeted to reach an audience of professionals beyond just your LinkedIn Company Page followers.
Direct Sponsored Content – this feature allows you to share content directly in the feed, giving you the ability to personalise and test content without having to originate posts on your LinkedIn Company Page. Make your content more relevant by sending personalised messages to specific audiences. Then test and retest a variety of content in real-time to optimise performance.
InMail – send personalised messages to the people who matter most to your business, with the ability to collect more leads with the lead-gen form.
Dynamic ads – these are customised messages to drive content downloads/page visits and collect quality leads.
Video and Carousel ads are also set to launch shortly, offering yet more opportunity to connect with the clients that matter.
WeChat
WeChat users spend an hour a day on average using the app (Image: Getty)
There’s a good chance you’ve not heard of WeChat, but it’s a game-changer in China.
With around 938m monthly average users who use it to socialise, buy, game and more, WeChat is a super-app.
On average, users spend more than an hour a day using it, and 40 per cent of Chinese consumers no longer carry cash because they can buy things using WeChat Pay.
The app allows you to localise your offering to Chinese consumers – but you will need partners to help you, and a decent budget.
Setting up a WeChat store and starting marketing will cost in the region of £50,000 – but there is potentially a serious return to be had on that investment.
Of the 300 million accounts using Instagram Stories, one-third of the most viewed stories come from businesses, and one in five stories gets a direct message from its viewers.
The possibilities are endless with Instagram stories: Boomerang, live videos, event promotion, user-generated content to increase engagement…..dive in and get creative!
With the ability to target your ads by reach, video views, traffic, conversions, app installs and brand awareness, you can drive business results at the same time.
Vkontakte
Vkontakte has 90 million active monthly users
When it comes to social media, don’t assume the ‘most popular’ platforms are the most popular.
Whilst Facebook has a presence in Russia (between 13 and 20 million monthly active users, depending on which report you trust), Vkontakte demonstrates that a well-structured social platform that serves the local population can take the lead as the most popular social media site.
On the surface, Vkontakte looks a lot like Facebook and Instagram rolled into one – but there are a few differences that really set it apart
Its embedded MP3 player and playlist tool, for example, is certainly worth investigating for anyone involved in the music industry. With access to 90 million active monthly users on the platform, it’s a potential seam waiting to be mined.
Bristol Social Media Week 2018
Most small businesses acknowledge that social media can be a wonderful way to promote their product or brand, but many are confused by whether they can still rely on organic reach (free posts) or if they should be investing their resources in paid for advertising (pay-to-play). When used properly, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram can become effective and profitable sales tools.
Social Media Week, the leading global conference hosted in over 25 cities worldwide, is coming back to Bristol in February 2018 to upskill and inform the local business community on key issues in media, marketing and technology. Business West is proud to be the official partners of this year’s event and will be taking over Wednesday 28th February with talks from the likes of 2014 Apprentice winner and CEO of Climb Online Mark Wright, Instagram, Aardman, JustEat and many more
![Social Stories usage comparison [chart]](https://www.socialmediatoday.com/user_media/diveimage/Instagram_Stories_500.png)
