Presently, social media marketing is all about engaging the audience you already have. It is also not about the number of impressions or the number of people who read our content, but rather the number of people who take action as a result of seeing them.

Even if your audience isn't seeing your posts in their feed, Instagram Stories are a fun, cost-free, and successful method to communicate with them.

Daily, more than 500 million people view Instagram Stories; thus, you should engage them with your brand. Using line breaking on Instagram for captions, and hosting lives are a few of the ways to do so.

Willing to learn more about social media? We're going to take a deep dive into some of the greatest techniques and top recommendations for growing Instagram Stories engagement and gaining more views:

Instagram Story Ideas: 12 Strategies You Should Try

So, you're sure that Instagram Stories are a fantastic promotional tool for your company. However, you're probably wondering what on earth you should post.

Fortunately, we've compiled a list of the greatest Instagram story strategies to aid you in increasing your engagement and following.

Here are twenty Instagram Story ideas that you may use to inspire your own creativity.

1. Answer Questions

illustration by Josh Warren

Are you regularly bombarded with queries from clients and followers?

People may frequently wonder about the right approach to using your product or how you accomplish certain results. Stories feature on Instagram is a perfect place to address these questions, regardless of whether you wish to use video or simply generate text graphics for users to read.

You may increase interaction even further by requesting that your followers send questions as comments on a few of your pictures so you can reply to them in an Instagram story. It's a fantastic method to engage your followers and start a dialogue.

Or, why not simply solicit questions by using the Insta stories Questions sticker and answer those frequently asked questions by broadcasting live on Instagram Live?

2. Polls and Quizzes

Instead of asking an open-ended question, use a poll or a quiz if you want to steer your audience toward a certain response. Stickers can aid in this endeavor.

Engage your audience with a multiple-choice response similar to the one seen below. This allows users to respond to your article with the press of a button rather than by manually entering text.

When publishing anything worthy of attention, a sliding reaction (with a heart-eyes emoji, of course) is both easy and powerful. Even if that something is only a refilled cookie container.

3. Host a Contest or Giveaway

illustration by Kristina Pesos

Using Stories to host a contest is a quick method to increase interaction, expand your audience, and entice your target clients to engage with your Instagram business account.

Here's the crux of how leveraging Instagram Stories to run a contest works:

• Ask your audience to share a story on a certain topic in order to participate in your contest. This may be a photo of them using your product, making a silly face, or anything else.
• Within that particular Instagram story, they should provide your account's handle (both by tagging your Instagram profile and by using a specific branded hashtag). They can only tag another user if they already follow them, thus it is a terrific method to boost your number of followers.
• To select a winner, you'll need to monitor your notifications (you'll receive a notification whenever someone tags you in their Instagram story) and maintain a list of all participants. Remember that their tales will be deleted within 24 hours, therefore you should take screenshots to keep a record.

4. Post Quotes

Quotes are concise, incisive, and most importantly, shareable.

Relevant to your business, motivational, fascinating, motivating, humorous, or just about anything else. You should scour the Internet for a quotation that catches your eye, ensure that it suits your brand, and then copy and paste it into your Instagram Story.

If you need something eye-catching for your next Story, we suggest looking for a variety of quotation templates available for your usage.

Location Hashtags

Increasing organic reach and interacting with your target audience is one of the simplest methods to improve engagement. The more individuals who view your material, the greater level of engagement you may attain.

Since engagement is the degree to which users interact with your material, your Stories must reach the appropriate audience. Using geotags and location-based hashtags on Instagram enhances local discovery and results in a 79 percent increase in engagement.

Using geotags in Instagram Stories enables you to reach individuals outside of your following, hence increasing the number of individuals who are interested in your product or service. As a result of reaching the appropriate audience, you may get increased engagement rates.

5. Countdown Sticker

It is common knowledge that generating a feeling of urgency is one of the most effective strategies to push your followers to perform the required action more quickly.

With the countdown sticker, you may promote an important event and allow your audience to set a reminder for any day and time (up to one year in the future) to be alerted.

People tap the sticker in order to receive the countdown alert promptly due to their fear of missing something crucial.

If you don't have an in-house graphic design staff, you may discover and repurpose stock photographs to use as Instagram Stories backdrop images. Once you have captured the attention of your target audience with the design, it is easy to convince your followers to learn more about your time-sensitive offer.

6. Start a Challenge

A challenge is an engaging technique to encourage content submissions.

Request that fans upload photographs and videos of themselves using or benefiting from your goods on their social media accounts. Request that they mention you in their post, and be sure to do the same.

Maintain relevance to the season and any current fashions. They should enjoy participating and not feel like they are doing you a favor.

For instance, fashion companies might request that customers share their fall beauty looks including the newest hues. Home furnishings might entice followers to share photos of a stylishly arranged room. Utilize pertinent hashtags, and if you're launching a new challenge, make your own hashtag.

7. Behind-the-scenes Footage

Using behind-the-scenes tales, humanize your brand. Show any stage of the manufacturing process, emphasize the individuals who make it all possible, or provide a brief humorous or amusing moment amongst coworkers.

This form of raw material attracts individuals into your brand's culture, which extends beyond the transaction.

You may also develop a sequence of stories that lead up to a product launch to generate excitement among your audience. Show them new hues, ingredients, tastes, and other attributes. If nothing else, you'll receive a like, and perhaps a share.

8. Celebrate Your Achievements (Big and Small)

illustration by Dhefry Andirezha

Everybody enjoys a good success story. This may be as simple as sharing video testimonials from your consumers or publishing bite-sized case studies on Instagram Stories.

Before and after images are also unquestionably successful. Ensure that you highlight the major selling features of your business and how your audience may benefit from them.

9. Instagram Collaboration with Other Brands

Not sure what to publish to keep your fans engaged with your social media pages?

It may be time to collaborate!

Whether you host an Instagram takeover on your stories, co-design a product, or just conduct an Instagram Live with another business, collaboration initiatives are an excellent approach to attract new audiences and keep your fans engaged in a unique way.

10. Repost Your Feed Using Instagram Stories

Although technically not a sticker, sharing your own feed posts to your Instagram Stories offers a clickable link to your feed.

Reposting is an excellent approach to continue cross-promoting your content and encourage your fans to interact with and view more of your feed. Just ensure that your stream is never monotonous!

Consider making themes to "house" your reposted image in your story.

11. DM For Download

As previously mentioned, in the current social media environment, it is all about building engagement and getting your present audience to interact with you.

Here's an example from email list-building strategies: request a direct message in exchange for a gift. This may include a downloaded checklist, an eBook, or even a spot on your upcoming webinar.

By doing so, you may establish a list of people you know who are interested in a specific topic. You've already had a direct dialogue with them, which is more engaging than merely adding them to your email list.

Conclusion

Hopefully, these Instagram Stories strategies will inspire your imagination and start you thinking about how you might make greater use of the feature, coinciding with larger usage patterns.

While you may not be able to increase your Instagram engagement instantly, it will ultimately help you better grasp the metrics and increase your Instagram engagement.

So, the next time you make an Instagram Stories post, consider combining some of these simple and easy strategies to attract more viewers, generate fascinating content, and encourage your fans to participate with your posts.

You'll immediately notice an increase in Instagram Stories engagement!