How to Use Instagram Stories to Get More Followers

Growing a following on Instagram isn’t always easy and maintaining your presence can be just as difficult. It’s incredibly easy to go days, weeks, or (scarily enough) months without posting anything at all on your social media, due to the fact that you’re simply fresh out of ideas for content to post! 

The problem is, taking a break from social media altogether can harm the following that you’re looking to grow. Not only are you unlikely to get more followers, but your current followers may start to forget that your brand exists. So, how do you stay relevant and connected on those days where you just have nothing to post on your main feed? By utilizing Instagram Stories, of course! In this article, we take a look at how you can use Instagram Stories to stay relevant and get more followers. 

Post Stories Every Couple of Hours

Posting a Story every couple of hours will keep you at the forefront of your follower’s news feed and are more likely to end up on the Explore page! Although posting multiple Insta Stories per day may seem like a lot of work, it really only needs to take a few seconds and can be incredibly valuable in both building and maintaining your audience.

The Lovely Escapist tells us more about how posting consistent Instagram Stories can benefit your account:

“Instagram Stories show up at the top of both your news feed and the explorer page! This means that new users will be able to discover your account just from you posting stories. The more you post stories, the more they will appear on the Explorer page, and the more followers you will get.”

Use Highlights to Drive Traffic

Normally, Instagram Stories vanish after 24 hours, never to be seen again. However, by archiving your Stories into Highlights, they can live permanently on your profile and be sorted by subject and/or titled. Highlights hang out right below your bio on your Instagram profile, allowing visitors to watch them anytime they like. 

Content Marketing Institute explains how simply activating Highlights on your Instagram profile can help you gain new followers:

“When new users land on your Instagram profile, they may not yet know who you are. You’ve probably heard a million times before how important it is to have a great Insta bio that catches the eye, quickly explains what your business does, and convinces new visitors to click that follow button. With the Highlights feature, the bio section is a place not only where you tell the brand story but a place to convert visitors.”

Create Stories Your Audience Will Love

At the end of the day, creating Stories your audience will love is most important in retaining your existing followers and gaining new ones. If you’re posting multiple times per day, odds are, your stories will not always be strategically planned. However, there are plenty of things you can do to make your stories more interesting, by simply taking advantage of Instagram’s included features.

Tailwind tells us how you can liven up your Instagram Stories to make them more appealing to your audience:

“Creating stories that your audience will love isn’t hard and you certainly don’t need to be a graphic designer to create visuals to engage your audience. Instagram’s own native story editing has lots of options for those who are looking to add filters to media, overlay text and emojis, add stickers and even draw. You don’t need any fancy software to create stories, either. Both Canva and Adobe Spark have free plans and are easy for beginners to use. Don’t be afraid to get creative with your stories through animation and custom text!”

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