Instagram, the picture and video sharing platform, has announced a major change to Stories that may make it a more appealing social channel for many businesses.
The Instagram swipe-up feature, which allows users to add links to their Instagram stories, has until now been limited to those with verified pages or users with more than 10,000 followers. The majority have had to resort to the old-fashioned ‘Link in bio’ message.
This week Instagram have announced that they are trialling allowing links on stories to be available to all users with the addition of a linking sticker.
For now, the test group is small, and Vishal Shah, Instagram’s head of product, says they’ll be monitoring the types of links people post to avoid widespread misinformation and spam.
If the trial is a success, and the linking sticker rolls out to all Instagram story creators, it will add the ability to direct followers to websites, landing pages, blogs, and other off platform content.
6 brilliant ways to use Instagram stories for B2B
1. Sneak Peeks and Product Launches
If you’re launching a new product or service, then Instagram stories is a great platform to build interest. By carefully creating content you will be able to build anticipation within your target audience, prime them for action and gather leads.
2. Humanise your brand
Marketing is more and more about showing the people behind a brand. Stories is a great place to showcase behind the scenes photos of your team and your projects.
3. Learn from your audience
It’s easy to ask questions, create polls on stories. Great if you are looking for feedback pre-launch for a new service or product.
4. Share your expertise
Is there a problem that many of your clients regularly bring up? Stories is a great platform to host tutorials, organise live Q&As, share information.
5. Share success stories
Everyone likes to hear good news. Stories is a great place to raise your business profile by sharing positive reviews, big wins, new clients.
6. Network
Conferences, events and presentations are all great places to share content from. Tag where you are and who you meet, all with the end goal of increasing followers and raising awareness of your business and your products.
All these story ideas are a great way to raise brand awareness, share your successes, and build credibility with your audience.
