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19 Instagram Story Ideas To Increase Engagement
You probably know that to increase your reach on Instagram and market your brand or business that you should be posting on Instagram stories.
So what should you post on your Instagram story? Here are 19 things that you can post on your Instagram stories every day to gain followers & engagement.
Instagram Stories 101
Here is a quick introduction to Instagram stories for anyone who is a beginner on using the platform with a business or growth purpose.
For those of you who are Instagram pros and are already familiar with the basics, you can just skip straight to the What To Post On Instagram Story section and get right into the ideas.
What Are Instagram Stories & Why Are They Important?
How Do I Post On Instagram Stories?
For my tutorial that takes you step by step through the mechanics of exactly how to post on Instagram stories, click the button below.
How Often Should I Post On Instagram Stories?
The hard truth is (and not everyone will like this), that in order to grow a successful brand account on Instagram, you have to post multiple times every day.
Yes, every. Single. Day.
Why Is It Important To Post On Instagram Stories This Often?
The truth is, in order to really gain not just a follower, but a loyal follower, you have to become a part of their daily routine.
If you post daily, they have the opportunity to consume and engage with your content. This will become a habit.
If you do not post, they can’t watch your stories and will watch something else, a new habit will form.
If they didn’t watch because you didn’t post, the Instagram algorithm will show them someone else’s content instead and you will be left out in the cold.
Sounds scary, right? Fear not, it’s not as terrifying as it sounds with these easy things that you can post on Instagram stories every day.
How Do You Gain Engagement Using Instagram Stories?
“How to gain engagement on Instagram stories” is a whole stand-alone topic by itself. Although this article includes lots of ideas of what to post on your Instagram stories, I have another article that deep dives into exactly how you can use these posts to increase engagement on your Instagram account.
19 Things To Post On Your Instagram Stories
Morning Greeting
The simplest way to start posting each day is with a morning greeting. This can be a still image, a boomerang, video or GIF (for exactly what these are and how to post each of these types of story, check out my Instagram Stories For Beginners Guide).
For my morning greeting, I like to add the day of the week sticker. I feel that this punctuates my stories nicely and helps keep my audience on track with what they are watching.
Personally, I like to get my face on stories in the form of a video chat as early as possible in the day. Remember that people follow people and the very best way for your audience to know like and trust you is to get your face on camera.
Yes, it can be daunting at first, but remember that everyone is a beginner at some point. If you mess up and it’s less than perfect, so what? Stories disappear after 24 hours anyway so just get started and you’ll improve every time you post.
Helpful Content To Establish Your Expertise
Whatever your business or your niche, think about helpful things within your area of expertise to share with your audience. By establishing yourself as an expert with free, helpful content, it will be easier to convert follower to customers in your business without being too “sales-y”. More about that later.
Elements Of Your Morning Routine
What do you do every morning? Do you make the bed? Workout? Rush and panic? Whatever it is, share it on stories!
The whole purpose of Instagram stories is to take your followers behind the scenes, and what better way to do that than to share the start of your day? This will start to show your audience the kind of person you are and help them get to know you.
An Example Of Part Of My Morning Routine That I Share Daily
As a Mum of four I have a lot of laundry to do (as you might imagine). If I don’t put a load on every day, the laundry takes over what feels like my whole life and I’m left overwhelmed and feeling as if I will never catch up.
Laundry is a part of my morning routine so I started sharing it on stories every day and reminding my followers to put on a load too. I now get multiple messages every day where people are tagging me when their load is on. These people thanking me for the reminder to do this daily and sharing how they are no longer overwhelmed with laundry because of it.
It doesn’t have to be (and probably shouldn’t be) laundry, but find a way to incorporate your morning routine into your daily Instagram story routine and that’s another story you can post daily.
Outfit Of The Day
Outfit of the day or “OOTD” posts are not suitable for every account or audience type, but if it can be a nice way to bring your audience a little further into your day and allow them to picture you a little better.
You do not have to be a high fashion blogger to do outfit of the day stories. In fact, my very normal “Mum wear” outfit of the day stories seem to go down well with my audience.
Even if you wear a uniform to work, you could even make a bit of a “Groundhog Day – OOTD” joke with your followers. “Oh guess what my OOTD is, oh yes, it’s the same as every day, lol” sort of thing. Give it a try and see if it works for your audience.
What You Eat In A Day
In my experience, people are by nature very nosey and love to know what other people are eating. Sharing what you eat will give you at least another 3 story frames to post.
For “what I am eating today” posts, consider using;
- Question sticker – to ask your audience what they are having for breakfast / lunch / dinner
- Slider sticker – to ask whether they like the look of your food
- Poll sticker – to ask an opinion (for example, “Is pineapple on pizza amazing or just wrong?”
Share Other People’s Content
Sharing other people’s content in your stories is a great way to serve up content to your audience with minimal effort.
You can share an Instagram grid post from another account by clicking the arrow icon above the caption.
Think about the following types of grid post content that you might share from other accounts;
Share Entertaining Content
If it makes you laugh, share it with your audience! People with a similar sense of humour to you are more likely to resonate with you.
Share Empowering Content
Share anything that really speaks to you and lifts you up. Again, if it speaks to you it will speak to your ideal reader, so share it on your stories.
Share Educational Content
This type of content created by other people can be an excellent way to help your audience. It’s good for newsworthy, topical or even sensitive subjects. In these situations you may find it easier to share something pre-curated that you agree with when you can’t quite find the right words yourself.
Favourite Things
What are you passionate about? What do you love? It doesn’t have to be related to your business or even your niche, but sharing your passions helps your audience to connect with you and even remember you.
For example, I adore ballet. If there is something with a ballerina print or theme, I will buy it for my daughters.
I share this love of ballerinas with my audience in my stories whenever it comes up. This isn’t something I script or intentionally add-in, but when I see something with ballerinas on it I always naturally gush over that item.
What impact does this have? I get so many lovely DMs saying “I saw this and thought of you”. Just as they would message a close friend when they saw something in a shop that they would love, my followers are kind enough to think of me.
I love that sharing this little part of what I love allows people to connect with me and really get to know me.
New Discoveries
If you have found something amazing that you love, share it with your audience! This could be;
- a film
- a show on Netflix
- a new chocolate bar
- a game-changing hack
Those are just a few examples, but really sharing anything that has genuinely enhanced your life could potentially benefit your audience too.
Your Work
Many of you will be reading this because the reason you actually want to grow your Instagram is to enhance your business and generate more revenue. So why is sharing your work so far down the list?
The reason that “your work” is so far down the list of things that you should share on your Instagram stories, is that if your stories are all sales, no one will want to watch them.
Rather than one long sales pitch, think of your stories as a way of bringing your audience (who are also potential customers) behind the scenes. They will follow you if they like you. They will buy if they know like and trust you. Sharing more than just your work is the way to build this relationship.
What should you share about your work?
Think about sharing;
- Your development or manufacturing process
- Customer reviews and feedback
- Offers from your business
Think about the Jab Jab Jab Right Hook method discussed by Gary Veynerchuk where you “serve, serve serve” before you sell. I would take this further and say that only a small percentage of your stories should be sales based with the majority of them to deliver value to and nurture the relationship with your followers.
Your Content From Other Platforms
If you publish content on your blog, YouTube or anywhere else that would be useful to your audience, share it on your stories!
You cannot use the “swipe up” feature to link to external websites until you hit 10K followers, but you can always tell people about the content urge people to go and seek it out.
Your Struggles
Sharing your struggles on stories reminds people that you are in fact human. Gone are the days where over polished and “Insta-perfect” people are the only ones that succeed.
This is something that I struggled to find a balance with when I first started. I worried that if I showed my struggles as a Mum that no-one would have any confidence in me or want to follow my parenting advice.
I quickly realised that this was wrong and in the very early days of blogging came to this conclusion – just be real.
If I had good advice to share, I shared it. If I struggled with something, I shared that too. I realised that being perfect is not a pre-requisite for getting people to watch your stories, quite the opposite in fact.
By sharing your struggles, your audience will be able to relate to you and follow your journey, which we will talk about next.
Your Journey
Sharing your journey in any element of your life will help your followers to keep tuning back into your stories over time. A good story has a conflict, then resolution. Basically they see the beginning of the journey, then follow along with you along the bumpy road to your destination.
Examples of the sorts of journey that you could share with your audience are;
- Decorating your new office or premises that you will use for work
- Running couch to 5K
- Losing weight
- Moving house
- Taking a course
- Decluttering or sorting your home
Any new challenge that you take on in your life could be shared on stories. Sharing the beginning followed by all of the hurdles then ultimately your success will help your audience to really get to know you.
Your Wins
If you have shared your journey, then make sure that you share the wins that the destination, but there are other wins that you could share too.
Examples of wins to share;
- When you win an award
- Gain a big new client or contract
- Manage to finish tidying your house
- Grab a bargain in the sale
- Actually get to drink a cup of coffee before it goes cold
Pet Peeves
As well as sharing what you love, it’s ok to share things that scare you, bug you and creep you out too.
It’s important to strike balance here, remember that no-one is going to want to follow a moaner, but sharing your little quirks on stories is a good idea.
For example, I hate bananas. I can’t stand the smell, taste or texture. I try not to let my kids know this or they wouldn’t eat them. This is, however, something that I share with my audience as it’s part of what makes me, “me”.
Ask For Help & Opinions
Asking you audience for help and opinions is not only a great way to increase engagement, but a really helpful way to get great feedback and information too. Here are some examples of things that you could ask you audience for their opinions on;
- Which series can you recommend on Netflix?
- Should I keep this dress or return it?
- Which of these colours should I paint my office?
- Should I get my hair cut short or leave it long?
- Which of these 2 logo designs should I use for my business?
Hobbies
You hobbies are an integral part of your personality, share them on your stories along with your other interests.
Pets & Family
As a part of your life, you could choose to share your pets and family in your stories. While I am sure that your pets would not object to this, other family members might, so sit down and discuss their level of involvement before you go any further.
As for including your children in stories, this is a personal preference thing and should be discussed within your own family.
My husband and I discussed just this when I started blogging. We conclude that we would include the children as long as they were happy to be involved, not shown in a negative light and were always safe. For us this, among other things, means that they are never shown in a state of undress and we do not disclose the region in which we live.
Evening Routine
Just as you can share elements of your morning routine, share what you get up to in the evenings too.
Goodnight Message
I often like to wrap up my stories for the day with a little summary of the day and a goodnight message. You can share how many things you did or did not manage to tick off your “to do” list and how the day went generally.
Sometimes this is a video of me talking and other times it is text and images, but I think it’s a nice way to round off my Instagram stories for the day.
The Most Important Things To Remember When Posting Instagram Stories
- Be consistent – post a minimum of 5 story frames every day, more like 10+ if you can manage it.
- Be real – stop stressing about how you should be and just be how you are.
- Don’t worry about messing up – stories only last 24 hours then disappear. Being natural on camera takes practice and only by doing it will you get good at it.
- Don’t put it off – it is better to do stories imperfectly than not to do them at all, so get posting!
See These Instagram Story Ideas In Action
Are we Insta official yet? Click on the post below and head over to my profile to say hi. There you can check out how I put all of these tips into action on my own Instagram account where I post my daily Instagram stories.
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