Instagram Stories Best Practices for Businesses: Get Inspired and Follow These Examples

August 2016. The world held its breath for a moment when Instagram introduced a new-old feature: Instagram Stories. New because it had never been available on Instagram before. Old because it was nothing but Snapchat on caffeine. 

Like it or not and use it or not, you have to admit that Insta Stories revolutionized the way people use this platform. While users went into a natural Instagram bonanza, brands tackling how to use Stories for business in an effective way have had a hard time. 

Instagram Stories generate so many questions that marketers rack their brains over every day. How long can Instagram Stories be, what are some common mistakes that businesses make with them, and are there any best practices to follow? Let’s find out the answers to such questions, and thus how brands can take advantage of IG Stories.

What are Instagram Stories?

Long story short: an Instagram Story is a small piece of content including a photo or video that is enhanced with special effects such as filters, stickers, gifs or text, and which is displayed in the format of a slideshow. IG Stories disappear after 24 hours of publication unless they are added to Highlights on an Instagram profile.

The technical side of Instagram Stories: Size, Length & Formats

To prepare appealing Instagram Stories for business, you should be fully aware of all the technical and design requirements. You need to take into consideration, for instance, IG Story dimensions.

So, what are Instagram Story dimensions? While any sizes with an aspect ratio of 9:16 should be displayed well, the official Instagram story size is 1,080 pixels in width by 1,920 in height. To ensure a faster loading time both for you and your users, you can choose to prepare a photo or video of smaller dimensions but with the same aspect ratio. 

How long can Instagram stories be? The Instagram story limit sets a maximum display span for photos of up to 7 seconds and for videos of up to 15 seconds.

Some marketers do not take enough care of IG Story sizes, which can negatively affect the number of followers and the quality of IG profile. If you don’t want this to be one of your Instagram mistakes, always double-check IG Story dimensions before you hit “send”.

How can Instagram Stories help businesses?

Instagram is no longer just another social media platform for uploading and commenting on photos. It is a huge advertising machine that helps brands sparkle. 

According to official Instagram statistics, there are more than 200 million business accounts on Instagram. The numbers speak for themselves. While businesses are aware that Instagram Stories are important to them, do they truly understand how they can benefit from using this feature?

#1 Driving extra traffic

With a “swipe up” feature, you can add a link and redirect your followers straight from an IG Story. While normal Instagram posts give you no opportunity to add links, this format helps you to insert them. According to MarketingLand research, 15-25% of Instagram users swipe up on links in branded IG Stories.

#2 Supporting content redistribution

Insta Stories can help you showcase content that did not land on other platforms, or can support content redistribution. If you just launched a new product or published a new blog post, Instagram Stories are a good way to spread the word.

#3 Showing various types of content

Instagram Stories for business can be planned, but they have great potential to be spontaneous too. For example, show the corporate culture, the life of the brand or whatever happens behind the curtains during a big show. This is another reason why IG Stories are so popular among Instagram users: they very often show secrets and things that would have never been shown on an Instagram profile.

#4 Building brand awareness

Using Instagram Stories for building brand recognition alongside a captivating Instagram bio also helps to form a stronger bond with the company. Brands can see who watched their Stories and what kind of content turned out to be the most appealing. Users are becoming addicted to watching the life of celebrities and brands on Instagram Stories. For some of them, it is just a way of spending some free time, but others turn to Instagram Stories in order to be up-to-date with brand life.

#5 Gathering feedback

Thanks to many options available within Insta Stories (Questions, Polls, Countdown, Quiz, Chat or sliding scales) you can, as a brand, quickly access feedback and interact with audiences on many levels. Normal Instagram posts lack these options, and brands are increasingly more often taking advantage of these features.

What kind of industry can be successful with Instagram Stories?

It does not come as a surprise that Fitness and Fashion come out on top. The good news is that there are many more industries on Instagram Stories, so you can get inspired.

What can you post on Instagram Stories?

Your business has just decided to give IG Stories a try? Great, we are sure that your stories will hit the spot! However, you may have quite a few doubts at the very beginning, and one of them can be… what to post on IG Stories?

Here, you can find a few loose ideas of posts that can work best:

• recent promotion or launch of new products
• tutorials and short video clips with reviews
• showing the “human face” of your company: Casual Friday or Throwback Thursday formats
• directly sharing posts from your Instagram feed or posts you are tagged in
• re-sharing user-generated content (for example, if your brand is tagged there)
• sneak peek of a new blog post or interview
• quick contests and polls with questions to the audience
• countdown, e.g. to starting sales
• sliding scales for giving feedback to your products
• posts from conferences or events where you can mention a lot of other people and pages
• new ideas of how to use your products or services
• brand-related materials (e.g. downloadable assets with the Swipe Up option)
• links, links, links!

In the next paragraph, you’ll familiarize yourself with some examples coming from the best in the business. Who knows which of them will inspire you?

Best practices for Instagram Stories – examples of successful brands

The list could go on and on because there are so many organizations creating good content on Instagram. Many businesses have figured out how to use Instagram Stories for business, and we would like to share a few ideas you can incorporate into your own social media strategy.

Lidl GB

Among the many interesting stories that Lidl GB publishes, there’s one in particular that combines the capabilities of Instagram Stories with social proof and user-generated content. Instagram users from all over the country are invited to show off their Lidl purchases through the #LidlByLidl hashtag. Not only do such mentions increase brand awareness, but they can also influence subsequent purchases and show multiple perspectives on the same product or content.

boohoo MAN

boohoo MAN also plays around with a variety of content, but they prove that sometimes less is more. They don’t overwhelm their stories with various elements (it’s very easy to overdo them), but instead introduce quick emoji voting and link directly to their store.

Snickers

What is the best way to engage followers with your Instagram Stories? Make their voices heard! Snickers created an ultimate Satisfaction Bracket, comparing many of their products and allowing people to vote for their favorites. Each round kept people on their toes, and they voted for their favourite product so it could win the whole competition. Such Instagram Stories were not only interactive, but they also provided Snickers with feedback about their most popular and liked products.

Subway

Quizzes are another highly interactive form of content on Instagram Stories, especially when they are supported by features that are almost tailor-made for the purpose. Subway is an example of a brand that has used the voting option instead of the quiz one to complete their stories – and bring their potential customers closer to their products.

Guess

Guess uses Instagram Stories in various ways too. For example, it creates engaging guides using the platform. At first they are shared as Stories, and then they are saved as Highlights on the Guess profile. As well as providing ideas and quick explanations, the guide also links to where customers can buy the products.

Trivago

You may think that Trivago publishes nothing but hotel listings on their Instagram Stories, but you would be wrong. Trivago publishes content like travel quizzes, with the correct answers being given and explained promptly.

Tips & tricks for Instagram Stories

You don’t need to lead a massive brand to prepare some successful Insta Stories. What should you take into consideration when creating one? We know some useful tips and tricks.

#1 Pay attention to your content

The 1st second of your content, both photo and video, is crucial. If you make a promise, be sure to keep it. Based on only one second of viewing, users can quickly decide whether they want to see the rest, swipe up and be redirected to the website, or tap several times to quit your story immediately

#2 Provide experience

The biggest reward for you is that someone not only watches your story but they also come back to it and want to see more. Provide them with the ultimate experience, show them exclusive content that makes them want to engage even more. Awaken their curiosity with photo and video content enhanced with native Instagram features. Instagram gives you a lot of opportunities to set your creativity free, while you can still drive amazing business results to your brand. 

#3 Test out interactions

Instagram offers a whole bunch of amazing features that you can use to drive more traffic or get more feedback, but first of all: to amaze your audience with your Stories. We have already shown you a few examples above, but you should keep an eye on your competitors, industry and global brands to see how they benefit from using those features. Also, it can be worth checking what is new with Instagram Stories on a regular basis. Once some new features are rolled out, you can be the first one to test them!

Polls can help you get feedback while a Countdown can be used to build anticipation for launching some new collections or introducing another set of services. Many interactive stickers or GIFs can make your content more natural, while a casual Location can point out where you (or your business) are.

#4 Stories are for stories

Instagram Stories are not called this name without reason. They should be mainly used for storytelling, not random information, so whatever you’d like to publish, try to involve your users in the story. Think twice before hitting “send” whether or not a particular piece of content is suitable for IG Stories.

You can use our own SIEVE approach. 

• Is your story:
  – short?
  – informative?
  – engaging?
  – valuable?
  – excellent?

If yes, kick it off!

#5 Save your Stories as Highlights

Don’t let your great content disappear after 24 hours! Saving it to Highlights can help you convert followers into clients even after weeks or months. Also, thanks to Highlights you can organize your Stories and designate them to particular categories. If someone will be looking for one series of your IG Stories, they can find it there.

#6 Make the most of user-generated content

This can work wonders e.g. for e-commerce. If your customers share pictures of your products on social media, and tag you in their stories, you can easily share it as your own story as well. How does it help? Your brand can build a lot of loyalty and trust this way, and it is nothing but a win-win-win situation. Besides the client’s appreciation, the brand gets a very valuable piece of content that it can share further, and followers get yet another reason to purchase.

#7 Take advantage of automation 

It can be hard to take care of your Instagram profile schedule, and to create valuable Instagram Stories at the same time. That is why you may think about automating some tedious tasks. Create and plan your Instagram feed in Kontentino. All of the posts and stories can be discussed internally and then you can send it for internal or client’s approval.

#8 Look for Instagram marketing hacks

Try to be a trendsetter by finding out what new elements or forms of content you can use in your Instagram Stories. For example, you can put a simple poll asking “Would you like to know more about my course?” in your Stories. You can directly message whoever answered “yes” with your offer, since they have already expressed an interest. It takes more time and effort, but it can deliver really interesting results.

Common mistakes with Instagram Stories

Mistakes can happen, especially if you’re quite new to Instagram and its rich features. For this reason, we’re here to help prevent slip-ups and ensure your Instagram content is always spot on. Take a look at some of these common mistakes with Instagram Stories that you should be aware of in order to avoid them at all costs:

1. Overly pushy promotion 

One of the most common IG Stories mistakes is to be over-promotional in the stories you publish. For example, regularly linking to your online shop without often posting much value can be very off-putting for your audience.

2. Not valuable or irrelevant content

Another Instagram mistake is to create irrelevant and non-valuable content. Your audience wants to get familiar with insightful Stories, not another promotion or simple redirecting to your blog to find out more. They want to be engaged, not tapping Story after Story to find out if there is anything interesting for them.

3. Poor quality or badly sized images and videos

Creating content of low quality is the next Instagram Story mistake. While on a private profile you can share whatever you want and taken by any camera, on a brand’s profile you need to deliver the best content. Photos and videos need to be posted in the highest quality. Also, remember about the right size of your Insta Stories.

4. Lack of consistency

This is one of the most popular Instagram Story mistakes. Take care of how your Instagram Stories look! 

They should not only reflect your brand as for fonts, colors, and tone of voice, but also be consistent with one another. You do want to aim to make your Instagram Stories look unique so that they won’t be mistaken for anyone else’s, but too many different elements may confuse your audience.

5. Boring Stories

Uninteresting stories are not engaging, and people simply do not want to watch them. If you don’t test new things but keep posting the same type of content over and over again, no one will watch your Stories. People love interacting on Instagram, so be sure that your content allows and invites them to do so.

6. Lack of analysis 

If you don’t want to make Instagram Story mistakes, you need to take a deep look at your statistics in order to deliver the best content for your audience! You can analyze your Instagram Stories in terms of impressions, follows or navigation (whoever skipped your IG Story, exited or tapped on Stickers), as well as how many people were redirected to your website or main Profile. You should check those statistics on a regular basis, otherwise, your efforts may be in vain.

Above, you can see some of those statistics in practice. How can you analyze them and optimize your performance based on results? For example, if a lot of people hit “back” on your Story, it may have been interesting for them and you may want to create some more like it. If too many people quit, then that piece of content probably did not perform as well as you had hoped. Keep your head up high, though – there are a lot of things you can test out!

Paid promotion vs Instagram Stories – Instagram Story best practices 

While brands can try to engage audiences organically or using a Swipe Up button, they can, of course, boost their activities with some Paid Promotion. Instagram Stories became an integral part of advertising systems, but can also be used separately as adverts themselves. 

There are a few methods you can use to promote your Instagram Stories, but remember that your profile needs to be converted into a Business Page first. You won’t be allowed to promote posts from a personal profile on Instagram.

How can you promote Instagram Stories?

1. Using Instagram Stories as a placement of your promotion set up with the Adverts Manager/Power Editor on Facebook. Then, IG Stories is just a placement. If you want to prepare a bigger campaign with Insta Stories as part of it, we recommend creating a separate ad set for Instagram Stories. Otherwise, the advertising budget may be spent unequally. This kind of ad won’t be visible in your Story, but will play the role of a break between browsing Stories by targeted IG users.
   
2. Using ONLY a placement of Instagram Stories.
   
3. Promoting an Instagram Story directly from Instagram, using their native features. However, Instagram currently does not support the promotion of stories with tappable elements. 

You can target your ads according to many criteria, including reach, video views, traffic, conversions, app installs and brand awareness.

When creating an advert, remember that your creative image or video must be prepared according to the SIEVE approach, but also include a clear CTA. What do you want your users to do with your message? The more clear your communication is, the greater your chances of success. 

Tools for Instagram Stories

Having an idea is a part of being successful. Executing it in the form of appealing Instagram Stories, photo or video, is another part. What tools can you use to make it work like a charm for you? Listed below are a few mobile or browser-based apps and tools that can help boost your activities and prepare better content.

Kontentino 

YES.

You can create visuals using one of the aforementioned tools or Photoshop, upload them to Kontentino and have your beautiful Instagram Stories auto-published directly to Instagram. Kontentino also helps you take care of other stuff on Instagram, such as scheduling Instagram posts or collaborating with your team, while you have fun playing around with Instagram Stories. Doesn’t it sound great?

Unfold

One of the most well-known mobile apps for creating Instagram stories. It offers over 150+ templates, and many of them are free, so you may want to give them a go. You can be sure that they will fit into the Instagram Story limit. 

StoryArt

Less known than Unfold, but delivers more types of templates, so you can be sure to find something for yourself and your style. It is also a mobile app. 

Easil

Creating Instagram Stories on mobile sounds natural, but if you need to give them some aesthetic boost and special preparation before you hit “publish”, designing them on your computer can be easier. Easil offers a few series that you can use for preparing your Stories. 

Instagram Story Templates from Kapwing

Another, very intuitive tool for preparing your own Instagram Stories based on chosen templates. It’s free and fairly basic, but it is a good shout for a start. 

Kaboompics

Always on the lookout for new tools and photos that you can use for your stories? Choose this reliable and regularly updated stock photo platform.

Burst

Another stock photo website with high-quality pics for commercial use. If you lack your own high-quality photos, this is when stock photos save the day. Of course, we highly encourage you to invest in photos or graphics that will differentiate your brand from others, but we know it can cost time and money. 

Manypixels 

If you are not a fan of stock photos, but you would like to make your graphic strategy consistent, the Gallery from ManyPixels can come across nicely. You can choose a colour reflecting your brand’s colour palette and you’ll get a whole set of graphics you can use for your Instagram Stories… or posts.

Canva

You have probably heard of Canva. You can also create some templates there and use it for many projects on IG Stories. What’s more, Canva allows you to prepare some animated projects now, so creating video clips is just around the corner.

Try our Instagram Stories best pracitces with your brand

Instagram Stories are nothing but a great adventure. If you compare Instagram to a theme park, the Insta Stories feature is a rollercoaster: you don’t know how the ride will be, you don’t know who will experience it with you and you don’t know how successful it may be. However, you do know that what awaits you is one hell of a ride. 

Kontentino 

YES.

You can create visuals using one of the aforementioned tools or Photoshop, upload them to Kontentino and schedule beautiful Instagram Stories. Kontentino also helps you take care of other stuff on Instagram, such as scheduling Instagram posts or collaborating with your team, while you have fun playing around with Instagram Stories. Doesn’t it sound great?

Unfold

One of the most well-known mobile apps for creating Instagram stories. It offers over 150+ templates, and many of them are free, so you may want to give them a go. You can be sure that they will fit into the Instagram Story limit. 

StoryArt

Less known than Unfold, but delivers more types of templates, so you can be sure to find something for yourself and your style. It is also a mobile app. 

Easil

Creating Instagram Stories on mobile sounds natural, but if you need to give them some aesthetic boost and special preparation before you hit “publish”, designing them on your computer can be easier. Easil offers a few series that you can use for preparing your Stories. 

Instagram Story Templates from Kapwing

Another, very intuitive tool for preparing your own Instagram Stories based on chosen templates. It’s free and fairly basic, but it is a good shout for a start. 

Kaboompics

Always on the lookout for new tools and photos that you can use for your stories? Choose this reliable and regularly updated stock photo platform.

Burst

Another stock photo website with high-quality pics for commercial use. If you lack your own high-quality photos, this is when stock photos save the day. Of course, we highly encourage you to invest in photos or graphics that will differentiate your brand from others, but we know it can cost time and money. 

Manypixels 

If you are not a fan of stock photos, but you would like to make your graphic strategy consistent, the Gallery from ManyPixels can come across nicely. You can choose a colour reflecting your brand’s colour palette and you’ll get a whole set of graphics you can use for your Instagram Stories… or posts.

Canva

You have probably heard of Canva. You can also create some templates there and use it for many projects on IG Stories. What’s more, Canva allows you to prepare some animated projects now, so creating video clips is just around the corner.

Try our Instagram Stories best pracitces with your brand

Instagram Stories are nothing but a great adventure. If you compare Instagram to a theme park, the Insta Stories feature is a rollercoaster: you don’t know how the ride will be, you don’t know who will experience it with you and you don’t know how successful it may be. However, you do know that what awaits you is one hell of a ride. 

Kontentino 

YES.

You can create visuals using one of the aforementioned tools or Photoshop, upload them to Kontentino and schedule beautiful Instagram Stories. Kontentino also helps you take care of other stuff on Instagram, such as scheduling Instagram posts or collaborating with your team, while you have fun playing around with Instagram Stories. Doesn’t it sound great?

Unfold

One of the most well-known mobile apps for creating Instagram stories. It offers over 150+ templates, and many of them are free & cute, so you may want to give them a go. You can be sure that they will fit into Instagram Story limit. 

StoryArt

Less known than Unfold, but delivers more types of templates, so you can be sure to find something for yourself and your style. It is also a mobile app. 

Easil

Creating Instagram Stories on mobile sounds natural, but if you need to give them some aesthetic boost and special preparation before you hit “publish”, designing them on your computer can be easier. Easil offers a few series that you can use for preparing your Stories. 

Instagram Story Templates from Kapwing

Another, very intuitive tool for preparing your own Instagram Stories based on chosen templates. It’s free and fairly basic, but it is a good shout for a start. 

Kaboompics

Always on the lookout for new tools and photos that you can use for your stories? Choose this reliable and regularly updated stock photo platform.

Burst

Another stock photo website with high-quality pics for commercial use. If you lack your own high-quality photos, this is when stock photos save the day. Of course, we highly encourage you to invest in photos or graphics that will differentiate your brand from others, but we know it can cost time and money. 

Manypixels 

If you are not a fan of stock photos, but you would like to make your graphic strategy consistent, the Gallery from ManyPixels can come across nicely. You can choose a colour reflecting your brand’s colour palette and you’ll get a whole set of graphics you can use for your Instagram Stories… or posts.

Canva

You have probably heard of Canva. You can also create some templates there and use it for many projects on IG Stories. What’s more, Canva allows you to prepare some animated projects now, so creating video clips is just around the corner.

Try our Instagram Stories best practices with your brand

Instagram Stories are nothing but a great adventure. If you compare Instagram to a theme park, the Insta Stories feature is a rollercoaster: you don’t know how the ride will be, you don’t know who will experience it with you and you don’t know how successful it may be. However, you do know that what awaits you is one hell of a ride. 

Instagram Stories can help businesses leverage their IG presence. If you run activities on Instagram and your audience is incredibly engaged, it might be high time for you to introduce Insta Stories to them. The Instagram Story limit is the only thing that may limit you. Have fun & be creative!