Improve Instagram Stories Engagement

Aside from the Feed, Instagram Stories are the most platform to showcase your message to your audience. With its vertical screen at 15 seconds cut-off, it is often tricky to make and display your content on Instagram Stories. it's also often a priority that Instagram Stories disappear after 24 hours, allowing less time for you to extend your Instagram engagement. during this article, I'll share a couple of facts that will assist you together with your Instagram Stories engagement.

Why Instagram Stories?

The Story format may be a highly celebrated feature on Instagram, in fact, it's been emulated in many various social media platforms including Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. It allows you to post more candid and more current content because the live period of those stories is merely 24 hours. At an equivalent time, you'll save your Instagram Stories to the spotlight, allowing you to point out off posts featuring your products, Instagram Influencers, and more. Instagram Stories also is an excellent platform where you'll link your products or take your followers to your site.

5 Popular Facts about Instagram Stories

1. More than half of Instagram users use Instagram stories.

Did you know, that over 60% of Instagram's 500 million daily active users use Insta story!

That means either viewing or publishing Instagram stories.

It's no wonder that they've beaten out the competition (Snapchat).

2. Tonnes of Users are Doing Product Marketing using Instagram

It's very hard to talk about social media without talking about influencers and the money-making aspect of things.

So with Instagram stories having such huge traction, you ever wonder what it means for influencers and brands?

If you hadn't noticed, a lot of influencers are starting to post sponsored ads on their stories these days.

That's because brands and companies have jumped on the bandwagon of doing more 'candid' and #relatable ads through popular influencers to gain more brand awareness and increase engagement.

Considering that people now spend approximately 28 minutes on the app (up by about 7 minutes) with insta stories around, it makes sense to jump on this advertising opportunity.

Did you know that currently, over 1 million advertisers place ads on Insta stories at least once a month?

3. Viewer Order Algorithm on Instagram Story

If you post on insta story, you've probably checked to see who has viewed your story.

Don't lie, we all do this.

But have you ever wondered why your viewers appear in a particular order?

Ho, ho, ho…you're in for quite the treat.

Check your insta story now. Seriously, all of you who are reading this, pause and go check the people who have viewed your insta story.

It has been widely theorized and proven by some Reddit users that the people who view your profile and photos the most without necessarily engaging in the content with 'likes' are the people who will appear on the top of that viewer list.

What does that mean? - People who have stalked your profile the most are going to be ranked the top few on the list of people who have viewed your insta story.

Did you get a shock to find out who is stalking your profile? - Your crush, your parents, your friends?

4. Controlling who sees your stories.

Public or private account, did you know that you can control who sees your stories?

Let's be honest, this is a pretty useful function for all of you wanting to post some questionable things but have family or bosses following you which makes things tricky.

For all those who already know this, consider this a reminder and to all the poor souls that didn't know this function existed.

It will save you some embarrassment/judgment.

So just go to your story settings and click on 'Hide story from' and select all the Insta profiles you want to hide your stories from.

And just like that, no more slip-ups!

5. Swipe up feature for Instagram stories

You've probably seen your favorite influencer or Youtuber on the Instagram story with that 'Swipe up to view…' caption.

And sure enough, you swipe up and the video, or whatever it is they have linked, appears on your browser.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

It's a pretty convenient function and I'm sure a lot of you have fiddled around with Instagram trying to see how you can turn that function on for you too.

Well, unfortunately, I'm here to be the bearer of bad news. It is confirmed that only verified accounts will have that function.

So if you want to have it, you're going to have to get your account verified. There's really no way around this.

How Often do you have to Post Instagram Stories?

Instagram can delay to 100 stories in one account within 24 hours, this enables you to post as many stories as you would like, or as little as you would like. However, when it involves engagement, it's best to stay your stories to five stories daily. Your Instagram engagement is most optimum with 5 Instagram stories per day to make sure a retention rate of 70%. However, most brands actually post 7 to eight stories a month.

The same research also indicates that the majority of users exit stories after viewing the third story. This provides you a thought of the way to arrange your stories. You would possibly want to stay those that are most vital within the first three stories. Alternatively, This challenges you to form your stories interesting enough within the first three posts to stay people watching.

Is Video Better Than Photos for Instagram Stories?

According to research, this is often mostly true. Video content has lower tap forward and exit rates, meaning that users are more likely to interact with video stories than images. However, the split between the 2 isn't as big. The research shows that 52% of video stories outperform image stories.

However, it's shown that video stories drive more conversations. More comments or replies are given to Instagram stories with videos, no matter their followers' number. In terms of Click Through Rate (CTR), video story advertisements also outperform images with 0.59% CTR as compared to 0.29% of stories.

How Does Follower Count Affect Your Instagram Engagement?

The same study shows that regardless of reach rates, Instagram accounts with a lower number of followers tend to possess less engagement. The very best average reach rate for smaller accounts (under 5,000 followers) is 9.54% while accounts with 100,000 followers only reach a mean of three .92% of followers.

However, the exit rates of smaller accounts tend to be bigger. Smaller brands with under 10,000 followers have a mean exit rate of 6.37% and may be as high as 7.32%. Comparatively, the typical exit rate of brands with a better number of followers is 4–5%.

Last words, Conclusion

The Instagram Story may be a potential platform to grow your brand, whether your account may be a commerce business or an influencer account who'd wish to increase engagement and send links to affiliate marketing products. Whatever your purpose is, a high engagement is important to make sure maximum efficacy.

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Originally Published on 9Mood by Author Rakshit Shah.