At the time when Instagram Stories had first been introduced, the reception by the masses was more or less neutral. While it didn’t particularly garner any negative sentiments, it wasn’t met with too much enthusiasm either. Snapchat, on the other hand, seemed to have taken a huge majority of the market, which garnered immediate praise and a large following. While Instagram had lost the battle, they eventually won the war as they reached a staggering three hundred million active users in November of 2017, spending at least half an hour of their time daily on the platform.

Apart from the teenagers and young adults who mainly comprised the majority of the network, brands were quickly switching back to Instagram too. It’s not difficult to see why they chose to move. Not only did most of them already have a considerable number of followers on the platform, but investing a significant amount of time trying to do the same with Snapchat isn’t very efficient. And with Instagram stories holding a lot of potential for advertising, marketing, and other relevant purposes, there was very little reason to choose anything else.

For those who want to establish their online presence and let their respective brands be better known through this platform, here are a few ways to enhance your Instagram stories and make the most out of them.

1. Make your own Instagram Story Highlights

Prior to the existence of Instagram Story Highlights, the only way to keep videos that have been uploaded for your Instagram Stories was to save them manually. If by any chance you weren’t able to do so, the content itself would disappear after twenty-four hours have passed. This may seem like a lot of time but with all the duties and tasks that daily life often entails, it isn’t uncommon for this to happen. But you can imagine how frustrating this can be, especially when a substantial amount of time and effort was put into the creation of the videos.

Released relatively recently, Instagram Story Highlights is a feature that prevents this from happening. It essentially acts as an archive or storage of your favorite videos and can be seen as a pin located within the highlights section underneath the Instagram bio as well as the tray for your regular stories. In order to properly make use of this feature, follow the steps listed below.

• Firstly, make sure that you are at your Instagram profile page. Underneath the Instagram bio section, you will see Highlights.

• To start creating your Story Highlight, click on the circle in Highlights that is labeled as New.

• After you have clicked New, you will be immediately taken to a page where your archived stories are located. Here you will be able to select exactly what you want to add to the first group of your Stories Highlight.

• After clicking on the Next button, it will allow you to input your desired name for the Highlight.

• Once you have typed in the name, just, click on Done followed by the Add button.

• That’s basically it. You’re all set!

As you can see, Instagram Story Highlights is an extremely useful feature and should be utilized, especially when your brand or business continues to upload content daily. This will prevent any mishaps of videos disappearing or the tedium of having to re-upload them over and over again. One thing to keep in mind when creating your own highlights is to follow the general rule of thumb which is to always have a clear and consistent theme. This makes it easier for users to remain engaged throughout your series of clips.

2. Invest time into educating your target audience 

In the information-driven society of today, knowledge has become just as engaging as more conventional forms of entertainment. Acquiring followers is one thing, but keeping them is an entirely different story altogether. To this end, investing time into educating your target audience through tutorials and various resources can pay dividends into not just growing your networks but also keeping them invested in you.

It is important to properly consider what topics to cover or how to impart knowledge, however. ,It is after all in its execution that will ultimately determine how successful it will be, and a positive reception can help boost your followers considerably across all platforms.

3. Link other relevant accounts

Apart from engaging your existing audience, one of the most difficult parts of finding success oftentimes involves having the visibility that your brand or business needs, especially when in oversaturated markets or highly competitive industries. They say that there is strength in numbers, and linking to other relevant accounts can help you get better noticed. This is especially true when you consider the sheer amount of active users that are on the network daily.

Not only will you be helping other accounts by sharing them in your own stories, but it’s also strategic in a sense that the same accounts that you feature will most likely do the same for yours too. 

4. Leave no stone unturned and try to utilize all features available 

Instagram Stories offers its users a lot more features than you may realize, ranging from various design filters for the text to tools for the indication of location. Taking the time to get accustomed to all of it essentially means that you’ll have far more tools at your disposal whenever you upload new content for your Stories, allowing you a level of creativity and versatility that you wouldn’t have had access to otherwise and should result in generating the engagement that you desire from your audience. 

5. Try always to have a call to action

Many of us with a brand or a business that we need to market invest our time into Instagram. As the saying goes, time is money, and it’s imperative that we make use of it in the most effective way possible in order to have the desired ROI or return on investment and in turn generate some profit and revenue. One of the simplest ways of doing so is by always having a CTA or call to action at the end of every Story or post that we make.

What CTAs essentially do is enhance awareness and familiarity regarding the products or services that you offer. You can better encourage both existing and potential followers to visit links such as your official website or your Instagram bio page and serves as an opportunity to widen your target market as a result. 

Summation

There’s no denying how effective Instagram Stories can be at engaging your current followers and enticing potential users to join the fold. However, it all depends on the way in which you share the daily activities which are relevant to your own brand or business. By using all of the functionalities and tools of the feature and tastefully pairing them with deep and meaningful content, you’ll undoubtedly get the numbers that you need and find success in establishing your online presence to your target audience.