Let Your Influencers Use Instagram Stories as a Part of Your Campaign
You see, Instagram is so much more than just images with captions and by not making use of stories you and your campaign will miss out on a lot of Instagram's potential.
Still not convinced? Let us provide you with a couple of reasons why Instagram stories need to be a part of your next social media marketing campaign.
1. Customers Love the Personal Format
The main reason you have to let your influencers use Instagram Stories is that both users and influencers love it. The unique format allows for a more personal connection between users and influencers, and this is often times where influencers publish most of their content.
While even the most active influencer rarely posts more than once a day in their regular feed, many posts several videos per day in their stories.
Our point is that the connection between an influencer and your potential customers is the strongest through stories, and you need to utilize this feature. Studies have also shown that brands that let influencers use stories to promote their products have a higher sales rate and there is a logical explanation for that.
Stories are usually very personal where the influencer records parts of their day and shares personal thoughts and ideas that they wouldn’t in their regular feed. That means that users find any recommendations made in the stories to be more trustworthy which naturally means they are more eager to go ahead with a purchase.
Also, Instagram Stories comes with a range of different features, themes, and annotations which can be used to sell your brand in a more likable and engaging way.
2. Swipe Up Feature
As you probably already know, Instagram doesn’t allow users to have more than one clickable link per profile. This often means that the only link you can have for your products will be left in the influencer's profile where many potential customers will miss it. However, there is one exception.
The Swipe Up Feature is a feature that lets the biggest influencers with over 10,000 followers link to third-party sites directly from their stories. You can, in other words, link directly to your sales page or another site of interest from an influencer’s story.
Not only is this great to drive traffic to your page of choice but it has been proven to increase sales by a lot.
Let us be honest, why wouldn’t you want to use as many clickable links as Instagram allows? It makes perfect sense.
3. A Compliment to Images
If you’ve ever run a campaign on Instagram before or you sell products that need more of an explanation than a single image and a caption can provide, you’re probably already aware of the limitations of Instagram. To combat this problem, we encourage you to consider using Instagram Stories to complement the images.
A competent and experienced influencer shouldn't have an issue pitching your product on a more personal level in their stories. They should also be willing to explain your product further if there are any complicated features or processes that customers need to be aware of.
A good way of putting it is that the main image or images that will be published in an influencer’s feed are your main selling point. This is where you show off your product from their best side. Then you can use Instagram Stories to go into detail and let influencers share their thoughts about your product in a more personal atmosphere.
In most cases, the combination of images and Instagram Stories is lethally effective.
4. 400 Million Daily Users
Let's talk some numbers. In mid-2018, Instagram Stories reported having over 400 million daily users. That means you can reach out to almost half a billion potential clients in a format that they love.
To really maximize Instagram Stories and reach as many users as possible, your influencers need to use hashtags and location tags effectively, but you don’t need to worry about that. If you hire great influencers with experience, like the ones Beatley provides in their network, they will already be familiar with how they can maximize their reach.
Are you still not impressed? Then let the numbers talks.
Compared to all other similar formats, Instagram Stories is a giant that no one can compete with. While Instagram Stories has 400 million daily users, Facebook Stories has 150 million daily users (May 2018), Facebook Messenger Stories has 70 million daily users (September 2017), and Snapchat, who founded the format, has 191 million users and that includes the whole app (May 2018).
5. Versatility
We would argue and say that Instagram Stories is one of the most versatile social media platforms on the market right now. It can be used to share videos of products, “behind the scenes” material, product reviews, product testing, tutorials, personalized video messages,
images, reminders, and so much more.
And since Instagram launched their live feature, the potential of Instagram Stories has reached new heights. Today, you can actually share live videos from events that you or your influencers are attending or take live questions from your customers.
6. Test New Ideas and Products
Our last tip is not really aimed at your campaigns but more so at your brand's own Instagram account. If you don’t have an account yet, we advise you to start one as soon as you can because it will help you tremendously with branding and customer reach.
Besides posting your own product images and reposting your influencers posts, you can use your Instagram account to get personal with your followers, and Instagram Stories is the best tool for this.
If you’re currently working on a new concept or an updated product, we recommend that you go on your Instagram Stories and talk directly to your clients about this new venture. Let the users share their opinion on it and listen to what they have to say. In the end, these are the people that will be paying for your products so their opinions are worth gold.
Instagram Stories also provides an opportunity for you to put a face to your brand and make everything you do more personal. It’s a great way to gain your customers' trust and cultivate relationships with them.
Final Words on Instagram Stories
We hope you have a better idea of the potential opportunities you can gain using Instagram Stories as a part of your influencer marketing campaigns. Instagram Stories is extremely valuable and potentially one of the most versatile marketing tools out there right now.
So, don’t be afraid to start implementing Instagram Stories in your marketing plans and don’t be scared to use this unique format to get personal with your own followers.
