Mastering Instagram and Web Stories: Best Practices

Yes, social media platforms are an inescapable part of today's business world. If you want your customers to know you, to make a profit and have a shot at succeeding - upping your Insta-game is a must. That's why the Storifyme team covered all the basics of Instagram stories, engagement boosters, and ways to drive traffic away from this platform in the last few storified articles.

Make sure to catch up on all the tips and tricks on Instagram usage before you dive into this one, the final chapter of our Insta-discovery, where we'll share the best thoughts and practices regarding the whole Insta-success-matter.

Once you're all nice caught up, let's start this storified guide with the obvious one:

Optimize for Mobile

No exceptions! If you're trying to succeed in 2020, there's no going around the whole mobile phone optimization thing. Yes, mobile phones are a huge part of our business and personal lives, and whether your site is mobile friendly is a huge factor when it comes to your company's triumph and image too.

People usually visit Instagram on their phones, so your website must dazzle not only during desktop or laptop sessions, but it has to impress and charm on smaller devices too! All the beautiful pictures, stickers, and special offers won't inspire much confidence if your site isn't quick to load and easy to navigate on mobile devices too. No matter which gadgets they're meant to be clicked on, create your storified landing pages carefully.

Keep an Eye on the Numbers

Having a good strategy is necessary, but what's even more important is to stay aware of your stats. Use Instagram analytics to your advantage and see what numbers say about your audience's responses. That's the only way you're making sure that you're sneak peeks & teasers, contests & giveaways surely work.

If you want your ROI to blossom, you have to find what your followers want to see, what inspires them to make the conversion and purchase something at your storified microstore. To get to that point, you have to stay on top of the information that you have and, conveniently, the platform in question has a built-in analytics segment that stores the info up to two weeks back.

However, if that isn't enough of a time span, you can find plenty of online-services that prolong the period data collection. Once you’ve got your spreadsheets assessed and you know what your strong suits and weak spots are:

Change Things If Necessary

To properly grow and prosper you should know -

1. The number of times your story's been watched (impressions),
2. How many of those people don't follow you but found you through an "explore" page or from a friend's share (discovery)
3. How many people responded in your DMs (replies)
4. All other relevant information

You should see Instagram stories analytics to get the hang of your statistics, but don't be just the passive observer if you see something that isn't working.  

Figure out your completion rate (see how many people viewed your last story vs first one) and to stay up to date and use that knowledge to drive more conversions. If you're not sure what all of those numbers mean and how to move forward, you can always contact us, and we'll brainstorm your worries away. But, you can always try to jazz your posts with interactive polls and questionnaires, hashtags and compelling calls to action.

Test, Test, Test

To see which stories and posts have done their product storytelling job in the most efficient way possible, you have to track the clicks. As with all things in marketing, it's usually trial and error kind of a thing, so you have to test everything. Did going live influence your conversions? Are you sharing enough of user-generated content and shouting out your biggest fans? Are your storified ads performing well? What can you do better with the next post?

Do your due diligence, research your options, and keep on testing new stuff if you see the old ideas aren't working as well as you'd hoped. As much as the Storifyme team appreciates a good plan, we also know that one has to retain a bit of creativity and flexibility in all things concerning storytelling and marketing. No stern plan is good enough when things can change in a heartbeat. You have to be always prepared to re-evaluate your approach, at the moment's notice if necessary.

Keep Your Links on Point!

If you carefully read our last storified article, you surely know that linkable spaces on Instagram are rare and far in between. You can link it up only in your BIO, IGTV descriptions, "swipe-ups" and shopping features. That being said, make sure every one of those clickable storified landing pages works smoothly and without a hitch, especially when it comes to your storified ads!

Uniformity Is the Key!

Post consistently and be mindful about the length & amount of your stories and feed posts too. The idea is to be present in your follower's feed, not to overwhelm them, because spamming always leads straight to the "unfollow". You'll usually see companies post around five times a week. When it comes to stories you have more leeway, so promote your stuff, share your inspirations together with behind-the-scenes action, but beware: after the seventh web story, the completion rate tends to drop.

Think about your brand visuals with every post, have your aesthetics, vibes, logo colors, and fonts unified across all platforms!

Save the Best for First and Last

Try to show what makes your brand fun and relatable with every "share". Boast the stuff that makes you unique and worthy of your audience’s attention without compromising on the quality of your storytelling capability. Instagram offers you both feed posts for the "official representation" of your company and web stories for a casual and somewhat improvised appearance. It would be a crying shame if you didn't use this platform to it's the fullest maximum when it comes to your customers, awareness, and conversions.

Engage your fans, make your posts easy to look at, and even easier to find and watch your leads and sales grow! Open strong and close even stronger (if possible)!

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