I’ve been doing Instagram Stories for about 2 months now! I feel a little late to the party, but truth be told I’m loving it and I wish I had started sooner. It’s so much fun interacting with followers and I’ve started some great conversations on there about business and mama-hood. It’s such a great business tool so if you aren’t doing it, I hope your start!
I’m not perfect at it and have a lot to learn myself but I do have some tips for those who are a little hesitant to put your life out there in such a vulnerable way!
JUST START SHARING
START! As Nike says, Just Do It! Start today!
MIX IT UP
Stories should be a good balance of personal content and business content. Share stories about struggles. Share about new things happening in your business. Don’t just show the same things all the time, mix it up! Show behind the scenes to get your audience excited about your business! On the personal side, share your workout or morning routine. Share what your kids are up to, your weekend plans, or show us some pretty pics while on vacation!
make IT DAILY thing, BUT HAVE A STRATEGY
This goes along with #2. I like to do stories everyday, it’s become part of my natural routine! It’s smart to have a strategy of curated content though! I like to look at the day ahead and decide what parts of my day I’m going to share. Am I working on dying new ribbon colors? A visual design board for a bride? Or are flowers arriving for an upcoming wedding? These things I will definitely be sharing as it shows my business and gets people intrigued. I also like to think of some personal things happening that I’ll share. Caroline playing, or a new house project. Things like that. It’s natural too for something to come up during the day that you want to jump on and share and I say go for it!
HAVE SOMETHING TO OFFER
Make your stories worth watching by having something to offer! This can be in the form of advice in something of your expertise, sharing an item you love, or a fun giveaway! I’m not saying to bride your audience to watch, but make it worth their time!
USE THE TOOLS
The polls, the Ask Me Anything button, the Gifs, and stickers! Use them to your advantage to make your stories more interactive and entertaining! Ask questions to get some great feedback on what content your followers want! They’ll tell you!
BE REAL
Let’s be honest, stories isn’t the streamlined and oh so perfect Instagram feed. It’s a real life view at things in your world and I love that! My favorite people to follow are the ones who are so real! Especially the work from home mamas. It’s ok if your day is a messy and hard, share anyway. It will help people relate to you on a human level. Don’t be afraid to stumble over your words, or mess up a thought either. These quirks are what make people relate to you so no need to be self conscious, friends! Don’t forget to respond to your direct messages too!
HASHTAG HACK
Ok! So how do you add hashtags to your stories without it looking awful? Nobody wants to watch a story with 30 hashtags on it…nope! Here’s what to do!
Record a clip or take or upload a pic
Type out your hashtags just like you would in your IG caption or comment thread.
Pick a color from your clip or pic that you are posting. Let’s say you are wearing a green sweater.
Change the font color of the hashtags to the same or as close as you can get color as the color you chose from your story.
Using your fingers, shrink the hashtags down as small as you can get them
Move the now tiny block of hashtags over to the object of the same color.
Boom! They are well hidden! Amazing, right?!
Well there you have it! My newbie tips for Instagram Stories! Hope you enjoyed!
Warmly,
Michelle