10 Unique Ways You Can Connect and Engage With Your Audience Using Instagram Stories

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTThere are 500,000,000 people per day watching Instagram Stories. It keeps you visible and it shows the authentic, human side of your business. Ultimately, it builds a sense of community. You need to be using Instagram Stories to be tell stories – the clue is in the name!You need to ask yourself who are your audience and what do they get out of your content?Instagram Stories is a great place to get personal, showing your personality and your personal side. Whilst you don’t have to share everything, showing a bit of your personal side is great. Remember, people buy from people.Don’t just sell your products, show behind the scenes too. Show what goes into it and how you created your product and service. This means you’re not necessarily selling your products, but you are regularly reminding people that they’re there.Instagram is a great place to educate your followers and show them that you are an expert in your field. Whether it’s a blog post or an interesting podcast you have listening to, people need to see why you are the expert in your industry.Takeovers are a great way to promote your product and service without personally talking about your product yourself.Using apps that have layouts and designs, you can create beautiful curated images to share on your Instagram Stories. Great apps to use include Story Art, Unfold, Story Luxe and Story Lab.Instagram Story Polls are a great way to get people engaged, even if it is as simple as asking ‘do you prefer cats or dogs?’Using the Instagram Stories Question sticker is a great way to get people’s opinions on your business, your products and your services. You can ask people for inspiration or get them to ask you questions about your business.Using Instagram Stories to be creative is a great way to stand out from everyone else.THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…If you’re wondering why you should be using Instagram, it is the second largest platform when it comes to social media. There are over 1 billion users, it is owned by Facebook and it is one of the best platforms for engagement.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSWhy Use Instagram Stories – 03:27Three Mistakes Businesses Make When Posting Instagram Stories – 04:53Tip #1: Get Personal – 06:00Tip #2: Create Product Stories – 09:07Tip #3: Educate Your Followers - 11:06Tip #4: Story Takeovers – 12:02Tip #5: Use Instagram Quizzes – 13:32Tip #6: Use Curated Images - 15:20Tip #7: Instagram Polls - 16:34Tip #8: Instagram Questions - 18:00Tip #9: Go Live – 20:10Tip #10: Get Creative - 21:58LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODEDownload ‘5 Easy Ways to Get People On Your Email List’Download ‘Your Webinar Blueprint’Download ‘How To Create A Highly Converting Sales Page’Episode 77 with Mary HyattEpisode 73 with Dill Takes PhotosStory Art AppleStory Art AndroidUnfold AppleUnfold AndroidStoryLab AppleStoryLab AndroidStoryLuxe AppleStoryLuxe AndroidTranscript below Speaker 1: (00:32) Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast and thank you so much for joining me here. Again, I hope you're having a great week. So this week I've got lots to fill you in on in terms of Instagram stories. I did a talk recently over in Cyprus and I did it all about Instagram stories and I thought I would share some of the content with you because if you follow me and you know me, you know I love Instagram and I love Instagram stories. Not only do I like doing Instagram stories, but also I watch a lot of other people's Instagram stories. I can find myself losing several hours in a day, which is not good, but it's a great resource. I've got some great tips for you coming up. Before we jump into that, I want to remind you that I've got some really, really good things that you can download.Speaker 1: (01:19) If you head over to my website to teresaheathwareing.com and on that home page I've got three different things that are really going to help you grow your business. The first one is all about how to get more people on your email list, five easy ways that lots of people miss. The second one is if you're doing webinars and you want a really good webinar blueprint on how to present a Webinar and then sell, so that one's going to be really good for you. And then finally, sales pages. So obviously when we're trying to communicate our product or service online, you might not think you're doing it via sales page, but it is the same principle as doing a sales page. So that download really is a great one. It gives you the key things I make sure I include in a sales page so that you can have a really effective page that hopefully converts people.Speaker 1: (02:10) So do make sure you go download those. I've got some other exciting stuff coming up soon in terms of another live masterclass. You know how I loved doing a masterclass? That's going to be in the coming weeks. Obviously if you get one of those downloads and you're going to be told about the master class as well when it comes out, so you'll be the first to know. Okay, let's talk about Instagram. Like I said, if you follow me, you know I am a massive fan of Instagram. I think it's a great platform and I particularly love stories just because they are so easy to do and they're just sort of the most authentic way of showing yourself on social media or one of the most authentic ways. So today I want to take you through 10 creative and unique ways in which you can use Instagram stories to connect and engage with your audience.Speaker 1: (02:57) Now just in you didn't know. Let me remind you why Instagram's good. Because if you'll set that thinking, Instagram's not for me, or you know, why should I even consider it that? I want to remind you that there's over 1 billion users that is the second largest platform out there. It's owned by Facebook. It both wanted the best platforms for engagement. Why Use Instagram Stories But Instagram stories in particular, why are they so good? So did, there are 500 million people per day watching stories. It keeps you really visible. So on your Instagram app, at the top of your feed is the stories. So basically it's your face or your logo, whatever, with a ring around it. Say, look, she's done a story. So it really is visible cause you're right at the top of the page and it shows the real you. It's so good at showing the human side of you because it's much more authentic because it tends to be much more real.Speaker 1: (03:54) It allows users to connect with you, which is great. And it does build a sense of community. So if you like following someone and you'd like their content, then what you're gonna do is you're gonna make sure you see their stories and you're going to feel part of their community and it has a higher engagement than in the feed. So you'll find that I don't post every single day on Instagram. I'd like to, I just don't necessarily get the time. However, I do do stories pretty much most days because the engagement now is way higher and a story than is on the feed and it hasn't been on production. You don't need the fanciest things to create an Instagram story. You can literally just do it with your phone. So I'm going to give you 10 creative and unique ways that you're going to be able to use it so you can connect with your audience. Three Mistakes Businesses Make When Posting Instagram Stories Speaker 1: (04:41) However, before we get started, I wanted to tell you about three mistakes that lots of businesses make when they're doing Instagram stories. Mistake number one, they're caring more about perfection than value. Now I'd like to say that there is times I might fall into this mistake. So I might be sat there thinking where has that rhyme and mega is a bit funny. A background needs to be improved a bit. And I'm worried more about that than necessarily what I'm going to say when I get on there. And lots of businesses do this, lots of people do this with their own social media. They are literally concentrating on looking great and then not thinking about, well what am I actually going to go on and say when I'm on it and is it going to add...