Marketing through Instagram boasts immense potential, and businesses today have fully embraced this to make the most out of this social media platform. One tool that’s especially drawing a lot of interest is Instagram Stories which is considered incredible for perfecting video marketing strategy.
But to make the most out of Instagram Stories, you need to take advantage of its hidden features and potential. Doing this will help boost user engagement in 2022 and boost your company’s brand image to existing and potential clients. Without further ado, let’s look at these hidden features to take your Instagram Stories to the next level.
- Add Location Tags And Hashtags
If you want the content shared on Instagram Stories to be visible and easily discoverable to a greater target audience, you need to add location tags. This will help you reach out to audiences within your region with ease. You should also install an anonymous Instagram story viewer app that’ll come in handy when trying to determine whether the location tag has been effective.
You should also use hashtags, as they’re also equally effective at making your content easily visible to your audience. The best part is adding a hashtag sticker which is quite straightforward. However, you shouldn’t use more than 10 hashtags so you won’t clutter your image.
- Instagram Music To Your Stories
There’s no better way to catch the attention of Instagram users than by adding music to your Stories. For greater impact, the song you choose should be easily recognizable among your target audience. By adding music to your Stories, you’ll make your content feel more interesting and engaging than just adding only photos or videos. Adding music spices up your content and makes it stand out from others in your followers’ feeds.
When deciding which music to use, select one that best reflects your brand and audience. After all, you don’t want the song to be out of context and come off as weird or confusing. Also, make sure that the song matches your video theme so that everything flows together nicely. If you’ve decided to take advantage of the music feature, make sure that the audio is loud enough for people to hear even when their volume is down.
With that said, it’s important to remember that not all tracks are available across all countries due to licensing issues. If you notice that a song doesn’t play in a specific country when you start typing, this is an indication it isn’t allowed in your region. This music feature is currently only available in the following countries: Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Sweden, the UK, and the US.
- Polls
Another feature that Instagram has recently introduced is Polls which can help you further boost engagement and boast immense potential. This feature has proven to be a success because users enjoy adding their thoughts during a conversation. Because of this, it makes perfect sense to invite them and get an opportunity to hear their thoughts.
With the collected insights, you’ll be able to quickly and easily gain insights into how their followers feel about your product, service, or even an idea. You’ll also find out more about your audience and interact with them quickly and easily. This method is preferred by your audience, who feel it’s less rigid due to its informal nature.
But for you to effectively take advantage of the polls feature, you need to be creative with your content to get valuable feedback from your followers. If you need help, hire a social media marketing expert who’ll offer you tips and ideas for using Instagram Stories Polls to get more engagement on your account. In the long run, this will help you boost your brand reach and get more followers by offering an incentive to vote.
- Countdown Sticker
Another new Instagram Stories feature you should take advantage of is Countdown Sticker, which usually remains on your profile until you remove them. This feature greatly boosts user engagement as it creates urgency, which inspires your follower to take certain steps a lot faster.
As the name suggests, a countdown sticker allows your audience to create countdowns for important events you want to share. When the countdown reaches zero, Instagram will notify those who viewed your countdown that the event has arrived. This can either be product launches, workshops or webinars, new episodes of a podcast, or when you’re going live on Instagram.
After sharing your countdown sticker in Instagram Stories, it’ll appear in your followers’ stories. This will help to further build hype around an upcoming launch, event, or sale. In addition, you can use it to drive views on other content you create, such as YouTube videos.
- Ask Questions
To boost engagement with your audience, asking questions on Instagram Stories is the way to go. By doing this, you’ll be able to engage your audience better and get them thinking while also allowing you to learn more about your followers.
Don’t feel coy about asking questions so long as it’s related to your business. This is because the response you get from your audience will help you better understand what they want from your brand and what they expect as followers. Asking questions is also a great way to get feedback on your content or any other aspect of your business.
There are several reasons you should use questions on your Instagram Stories to boost engagement, and these are;
- To generate content ideas
- To ask for opinions on new products, future designs, and other content ideas
- To understand your audience better
- To poll and gauge interest
- To get feedback on a current promotion or product
But before you get to use this feature, make sure first to understand that the purpose of adding questions to your Stories isn’t for the sake of it or an easy win. It should be used strategically so that the answers you get from your followers are useful.
Takeaway
As Instagram continues to improve the Stories feature, it’s easier than ever to use the app as a powerful tool for your business. Just like the platform itself, Instagram Stories has evolved based on user behavior, which is why there’s been the incorporation of new features. Because of this, it’s always worth keeping an eye on new updates that can make your marketing efforts more effective. If you didn’t know of these hidden features, this guide has outlined all of them and will prove crucial in your quest to boost engagement.
