Instagram Stories are a great way of creating visually appealing content that invites brands’ followers to engage, whilst still pushing out messaging and driving traffic to their website. But with new features constantly being announced, it can be hard to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and switch up content so it’s not always the same.

To help, Instagram has announced a step-by-step guide that shows you how to ‘create playful and interactive Instagram Stories’ – to help brands interact with audiences and improve engagements.

Within the guide, Instagram discusses 5 steps brands can follow and highlights the different ways those steps can be implemented:

• Moments – many brands have found that posting content of behind-the-scenes or real-life situations improve engagements as consumers can relate. So why not show that through Instagram Stories? Examples of this could include product tutorials, reviews or even an unfiltered look into the people behind the brand.
• Text – using text within your Stories is an easy way of getting your core messages across to consumers, but it doesn’t have to be boring. Instagram’s guide shows different techniques and how brands can get creative with their text on Stories.
• Stickers – similarly to moments, stickers and GIFs are a great way of showcasing your brand’s personality on Stories. By adding in locations, stickers or playful GIFs, brands are seen as fun and also invite a brand’s consumers/followers to discover more.
• Interactions – there are multiple features on Instagram Stories that allow brands to encourage followers to directly engage and interact with them. Poll’s, quizzes and questions are all relatively new features for Stories but brands have taken them on by storm and here at IF, we love them!
• Get creative – with every update, comes a new creative tool for Instagram users. And to stay above the rest, it’s useful for brands to go that one step further by looking into the advanced tools available, such as pinned words and stickers.

To find out more about how to improve your Instagram Stories strategy or where to start, then get in touch!