The more I talk to my peers about how they interact with social media, the more I become convinced “Story-style” content is currently the top dog. Even in the age of TikTok, Instagram remains the most valuable platform for businesses. And in 2020, it looks like most Instagram users enjoy opening the app, watching all of the stories at the top, and then closing the app.
So what are the best ways to focus your businesses’ social media efforts into stories, rather than traditional posts?
Go Interactive
Find ways to engage your audience with your products or content. Getting your audience’s feedback on your business or things you post is great.
People like interactive content such as polls. This type of post can work for your business in two ways. Outside of the natural benefit of getting customer feedback on one product vs another, it can also serve to make your audience feel invested in the outcome.
For example, if you’re a cake shop, you can post a simple poll asking “Do you prefer a full cake or just cupcakes?” This not only allows you to prioritize the winning product, but it also gets your customers emotionally attached to their side. It can be fun to pick a side on inconsequential arguments like that. It would be similar to the pineapple on pizza debate. It’s not about driving people against each other, but rather about creating a silly identity around a poll choice.
Follow the trends
Identify the content you’re already producing to market yourself that aligns with current social media trends. This can include looking back at past social media posts you’ve made, or old blog content you created.
If the trend of the month is, say, spotlighting employees, dig up old content you created like this. Popular among social media users is the “x years ago today” type of content. Obviously this requires the old post to actually fall on the date you want to share it. But you can keep an eye out for these types of re-shares being presented by the social media app. Snapchat is great at this, making it quite easy to see that an old post went up exactly 3 years ago, and allows you to share this post’s anniversary.
This allows you to have an everlasting well of content to fill your account with. You can even plan for a couple days a week to reuse old content, giving you more time to come up with new ideas, and possibly even lead the next big trend!
Be Consistent
Having a story posted every day is crucial in the current social media landscape. You want to be the business that people talk about as having a great social media presence. Consistency is the key to making audiences feel like they are always up-to-date on your activity.
Being a more personal marketing tool, social media should be used to humanize your brand. Even if you don’t have a dedicated social media marketing employee, find someone that can bring that life to your account. There is likely someone at your business that enjoys sharing a large chunk of their life on social media. This is the person to put in charge of your daily posts.
When it comes to instagram story-type of posts, this person can share something as simple as walking into the building every day. Or as we all find new ways to conduct socially-distant business, you can share that process on your account. Let this person share stories about their at-home setup. Let them show off behind-the-scenes clips of virtual meeting calls.
In the end, giving your users a reason to tap on your icon every day when they come to instagram, facebook, snapchat, or whatever the next big platform may be, is crucial. This is the gateway to getting your followers to engage with your more traditional social media posts. Getting users invested through daily social stories is the path getting more likes on your posts than ever before.