To what extent do you think B2B businesses should use Instagram Stories? To put it briefly, yeah.
Instagram Stories (IS) is not only a new feature of a hot app for millennials, as some B2B organisations may assume. It may be a great platform for B2B enterprises to generate leads in addition to helping fashion and lifestyle brands gain massive followings.
When it comes to social media advertising, Instagram has already shown to be among the most successful platforms. It’s a place for companies of all sizes and stages to network with others in their field. Instagram is a fantastic tool for communicating a company’s narrative, and the platform typically provides a more genuine consumer experience when interacting with a business than other social media like Facebook or Twitter.
How come companies may benefit from Instagram stories?
After only a year on the market, Instagram Stories (IS) has surpassed Snapchat as the go-to app for both businesses and consumers when sharing short video clips. IS, which boasts over 250 million users, swiftly shown how advertisers can employ temporary video to not only captivate their target demographic but also achieve their marketing goals.
As Instagram puts it, Stories help you engage with consumers and prospects with a more comprehensive information that a single photo can produce. Being the first thing that users see when opening the app, Stories are a great way for companies that actively participate in the platform to maintain a prominent presence in the minds of their target demographic.
In addition, Instagram now allows companies to accomplish a great deal, such as make advert stories, include links or CTAs, and tag. By giving them a lot of leeway, brands may work with influencers to produce real, results-oriented sponsored content.
Yet, it might be difficult for B2B companies who don’t have a visually appealing product or service to know where to begin with Instagram Stories. When determining if the app is a suitable fit for your brand, it is essential to try out various sorts of content and evaluate the outcomes.
Here are a few suggestions on how B2B companies may use Instagram Stories.
Give them an inside look at your business or product
Though Instagram Stories only exist for a day, the impact they have on your brand may be significant. If you want your audience to feel more connected to your company, consider sharing behind-the-scenes footage of exciting events or unique experiences.
Showcase the unique culture of your organisation
You should tell brand stories on Instagram Stories since that’s what they were designed for. Put on a workplace event, hackathon, team-building activity, or even a bake-off to highlight your firm’s values and what makes it stand out from the competition.
Keep in mind that the app is meant to be personalised and creatively enhanced, so don’t be afraid to experiment with the many filters, stickers, hashtags, polls, and locations available to you in order to tell a better narrative or provide more context.
Co-creation and user-submitted materials
Using user-generated content (UGC) from your customers and workers, as well as collaborating with influencers and other companies, is a fantastic method to rapidly expand your audience. This may be done through the use of popular formats such as takeovers, interviews, tutorials, and product reviews.
By having an influencer, partner, team member, or customer take over your Instagram story, you can show your audience your branded content from a fresh and interesting angle. You may benefit from each other’s dedicated following and audience. Takeovers are distinctive in that they provide a win-win interaction between the acquiring and acquired parties. If done correctly, it may be a crucial strategy for expanding your fan base.
Make them learn something
Your company may establish itself as a thought leader by providing instructional guides for products or strategies. A few examples are pre-collected brief tips, product demos, and frequently asked questions.
Send out promotions, discounts, or links to websites
IS’s use for companies stems from its capacity to encourage users to readily respond to calls to action, going beyond the simple act of content sharing. Later claims that Instagram’s “tagging and connecting features are one of the finest things about Instagram Stories for business and what sets them apart from Snapchat.”
Your consumers and potential customers will feel a feeling of urgency because of the time-sensitive nature of the IS. More people will respond to your message and take action if you include a clear call to action.
Advertised Instagram Story Promotion
The ability to connect, geotarget, and use multiple calls-to-action makes promoted Instagram Stories a potent lead-generation tool. Only one month after the linking option was implemented, 15–25% of individuals who saw a link in an Instagram Story were tapping on it, as reported by Marketing Land.
More than that, the commercials are significantly more engaging and organic than traditional ads.
Thanks to the geo-targeting tools, you may narrow your focus on a certain region and even design custom geofilters for your content.
With these tools, businesses may tailor their Story distribution and filter offerings to certain demographics and geographic regions.
I’ll turn it over to you now
A well-executed Instagram Stories campaign has the potential to be a cutting-edge new method of advertising for business-to-business interactions, allowing such organisations to imaginatively tell the tales of their brands in service of their own commercial objectives. When you generate content with a 24-hour lifespan, you can relax as a marketer knowing that it won’t be around forever.
Instagram Stories isn’t the place to get all fancy with your video editing skills. Get the most out of it by making material that is engaging, relevant, and short-lived, as that is what it was built for.