Your brand’s creative Instagram Story is the perfect place to engage followers, promote new products, and gain your brand’s awareness.
After all, more than 500 million users watch the creative Instagram Stories every day. So in case you’re not using the feature as part of your social media strategy, you’re probably leaving a lot of money on the table.
However, what exactly should you post on your Instagram Story? Fortunately, we’re here to answer that question.
Below we’ve included the 20 creative ideas to post on your Instagram Story. This allows you to create an endless well of content to draw from and will help you get the most bang for your buck from the platform.
Let’s dive in.
20 creative Instagram Story ideas that will boost engagement
1. Promote blog posts
Your brand’s Instagram Story is an ideal place to advertise your blog’s latest article.
When coupled with the “Swipe Up” feature, you’ll be able to send customers straight to post instead of referring them to the link in your bio. This way is perfect for generating leads with a brand new avenue of traffic to your blog posts.
Unfortunately, the Swipe Up feature is at present only available to business accounts with 10,000 or more followers.
In case you’re not there yet, don’t worry. Take a look at our article on how to get more Instagram followers.
2. Promote Instagram posts
Instagram Stories are an amazing place to share your latest post to all of your followers. After all, you can’t really predict what posts your followers will see on their feed — however you may make sure that all your Story followers see that you have a new post.
Just take a screenshot of your Instagram post or feed and obscure the picture. You tease the post for your followers that way.
Take a look at how photographer Mark Averill does it in his Story above.
3. Promote products
Launching a product you need to generate buzz for? Your Instagram Story is perfect for that.
Announce a product launch, get feedback on a product, or promote a present product you’ve already released.
In the example above, Ramit Sethi makes use of his Instagram Story to promote his online courses. It’s a simple and fun way to build engagement while increasing product sales. Double win!
4. Create a shoppable story
Instagram released their shoppable Story stickers in 2019. This helps businesses and entrepreneurs sell their products directly on their Instagram Stories. They use a special sticker instead of requiring the user to “swipe up” and navigate away from the app.
There are some requirements to get the sticker.
You must be selling a physical product that complies with Instagram’s policies, and you should have a business profile on Instagram. The sticker is currently available in only 46 countries.
5. Story takeover
An Instagram takeover is whenever you allow someone who doesn’t typically have access to your Instagram account to publish on it for a day. This may be an employee, coworker, or an influencer you’ve hired to advertise your brand.
Of all the Instagram Story ideas on this list, this can be a fun method to humanize your model and supply some enjoyable content material in your viewers. In case you accomplice with an influencer, you can even promote your model and merchandise.
The Mighty Missouri Coffee Company did this in the example above when they worked with travel influencer @outsidevibes.
6. Go live
Live videos are an incredible way to directly engage your audience.
Instagram Live allows users to ask questions, comment on your live video, and provide real-time engagement.
Most users will even be notified with a push notification when you start broadcasting live.
That is great for boosting engagement.
And once you’re completed with the live video, it will appear immediately on your Instagram Story. This allows those who might have missed it live to check the video out later.
As with any Instagram Story, it is going to be available for 24 hours before being archived.
For more information on live video greatest practices, check out our video on the topic below.
7. Use IGTV
Launched in June 2018, Instagram TV (IGTV) is Instagram’s standalone video app that helps users create long-form video channels, just same like YouTube.
Creators can connect their IGTV profiles to their normal Instagram profiles and give their viewers a one minute preview of their channel on their Instagram Story feed.
It is a great way to share longer type video content for your audience.
As of 2019, unverified users can publish videos up to 10 minutes long, while verified users can enjoy videos up to one hour long.
8. Conduct a poll
Instagram provides a poll sticker for customers to put on their Stories. It’s simple: Ask your followers a question with a selection of two responses.
Polls are an effective way to interact your audience and build your brand. The most effective part is that there are tons of ways you’ll be able to approach you poll.
For example, you can gamify your Story by quizzing your audience on different topics. Or, conduct easy customer research by giving your followers an option of two products you might launch soon. Or, have some fun just like in the example above.
9. Thought leadership
Have a hot take? Got some ideas or tips to share?
Your creative Instagram Story is a good place for your brand to present some thought leadership. Doing so will build engagement and place your brand as a trustworthy source of information.
Personal finance and development expert Ramit Sethi does this very well with his Instagram Stories. Every day, he speaks directly to his Story viewers about different topics related to money and answers questions when they come up. You totally can do the same with your Story.
10. Use the question sticker
Another nice way to engage followers is by using Instagram’s question sticker. This allows you to pose a question to your followers (like the poll sticker) but they can answer with anything they want.
You can then share the answer on your Story. This is great for building engagement and having a bit fun with your followers.
With the question sticker, you’ll be able to crowdsource new ideas for content, quiz your readers on different topics, or take requests for your impromptu piano concert.
