How To Use Instagram Stories to Grow Your Audience and Attract Clients

Hey Beautiful!

Today, I am so excited to share about Instagram stories; over 300 million people use Instagram stories daily and people love to watch stories. 

Those video snippets can quickly turn a followers into a fan and bring more eyes to your content to grow your audience and even attract clients. 

And I break it all down here -

Here is what I cover in this blog post:

- How to effectively use story on Instagram?
- The key mistake you might be making on Instagram stories.
- Why Instagram highlights are so important?

First, how to effectively use story on Instagram?

Think about your Instagram feed as your permanent content that people who look you up will find about your business. 

If you don't like being on camera, you might want to rethink it because people love to watch Instagram stories. New followers will most likely check out your stories as soon as they start following you - 

Instagram stories on the other end is all about sharing about your personality, so people know about you. 

Instagram stories help you stack up your Likeability factor. 

And people buy from us when they Like - Know - Trust us. 

So, what are Instagram stories?

Instagram Stories—a camera-first fullscreen visual format that disappears after 24 hours. 

You can film yourself speaking or upload a picture to Instagram stories. You can add text or music to your Instagram stories. 

How To make Instagram Stories

1. In the app, click the camera icon in the top right corner to access the Instagram Stories camera
2. Tap the white circle at the bottom of the screen to take a picture, OR
3. Press and hold the white circle to record video, OR
4. Swipe up (or select the square gallery icon on the left) to use pre-existing visual

To upload pictures and add text 

What to share in your Instagram stories?

Instagram stories are meant to be less formal; they are the hub for social interaction; 

Here are few Instagram story topics:

• Your morning routine: this is a very popular subject for Instagram stories
• Behind the scenes in your business
• A fun event about your life or a meal you are cooking

Stories are a fun way to give behind the scenes peak into your life.

Second, What are the key mistakes to avoid with Instagram Stories.  

One of the key mistakes in Instagram stories is to not text over pictures and stickers. 

Both text and stickers encourage engagement from your audience and interaction with your content.  

This is important because Instagram stories are great way to get people to get to know you better and ask you questions.

There are three ways here:

1) Add text to narrate your Instagram stories videos. Some many people don't realize that people watch videos without sounds. 

So If you film yourself on Instagram videos, make sure to add text, so your followers can pick the interest of your visitors. 

2) Add a sticker to your Instagram stories. Stickers are questions or polls you can add to your Instagram stories, so other can interact with your account. 

Stickers help you:

• express a mood with gifs, emojis, or music
• encourage engagement with polls, countdowns, or questions
• Make your post shoppable with product stickers

How to add a sticker to your Instagram Story:

1. Share a photo or video to your Story 
2. Tap the sticker icon at the top of your screen
3. Select the type of sticker you’d like to use. Each type has its own tips and tricks that take a little bit of experimentation.

How to add a question to your Instagram stories - Follow the steps below: 

How to add a poll to your Instagram stories - Follow the steps below: 

Third, why Instagram Highlights are so important - 

Instagram created a way to keep our stories more than 24 hours. We can pin our Instagram stories to our profiles. Right under our bio. 

This is prime real estate because your audience get to see your Instagram Highlights front and center. 

Highlights are a curated way to captivate and direct the attention of your audience to a specific topics. 

So, the typical Instagram highlights are:

• Your Story a.k.a About You!
• Clients testimonials
• Your services
• Anything that was popular in your regular stories 
• A new product or coaching services you are launching

How to create an Instagram Stories highlight:

1. Open the Story you’d like to highlight
2. In the lower right corner, tap the highlight icon.
3. Choose the highlight to which you’d like to add the Story, or
4. Create a new highlight

Instagram stories for client's attraction - 

A bonus, Instagram Stories can help you reach potential buyers directly.

Questions stickers on Instagram stories are great because they can help you create more engagement with your audience.

Poll stickers on Instagram stories can help you poll your audience to figure out what content they are interested in. 

Adding text and stickers is that once your audience interact with your stories, you more recent story shows up at the top of their account once they open the app. 

I love both stickers because they can prepare your audience to interact with your content for times when you have open slots for more coaching clients or you have a new program or products coming up.  

If you are launching a new product or services, you can quickly create a Instagram highlight for the launch period. This will keep your offer right in front of your audience for any potential buyers to quickly see your offer!