Instagram Stories For Business: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet For 2024

Instagram stories for your business are a powerful way to connect with your audience, build brand awareness, and drive traffic to your website or landing pages. In fact, Instagram stories are now one of the most popular features on the platform – with over 500 million people using them every day.

But with so many businesses now using Instagram stories, it can be tough to stand out from the crowd. So how can you make sure your stories are driving results for your business?

In this article, we’ll share the ultimate cheat sheet for using Instagram Stories for business. We’ll cover everything from creating attention-grabbing content to using the best tools and apps to make your Stories stand out. By the end of this article, you’ll have everything you need to create effective Instagram stories that will help you achieve your business goals.

10 Tips To Perfect Your Instagram Stories For Business

Instagram stories are one of the most effective methods to connect with your audience, promote your business, and increase your brand visibility. But with all the different features and options, it can be easy to get overwhelmed.

From using hashtags and location tags to taking advantage of features like stickers and polls, we’ve got you covered. Here are 10 tips to help you make the most of Instagram stories for your business.

1. Don’t be afraid to experiment

The best thing about Instagram stories is that they don’t stay on your page forever. Unless you want them to! In this case, you can easily save them as an Instagram Highlight. But because stories only stay for 24 hours, you can experiment with different ideas, try out new and exciting things, and get feedback in real time.

So whether it’s a new kind of design you want to try out, or a new brand thought or perspective, you can do all that using stories.

2. Grab all opportunities to interact

The many interactive features on Instagram stories will take your Instagram marketing to the next level. You can add quizzes, polls, questions, reaction sliders, contests, and more, to keep your audience engaged with your stories!

Just make sure to make your stories eye-catching and interesting enough to have your audience willingly interact with your content. Instagram stories are another chance to have direct, authentic interactions with your target audience. You can add a bit of humor to your stories too!

3. Focus on your brand’s visual identity

Instagram stories for your business are an effective method to develop unique associations for your brand. Once you figure out an aesthetic, stick to it and use it consistently. This way, people can recognize your brand easily. To make designing easier, you can make unlimited Brand Kits with preset logos, colors, and fonts of your brand that you can use to make content across all platforms.

4. Use direct links

You can easily add the link to your website when posting an Instagram story. Just use the ‘Link’ sticker, put in your link, and tap ‘Done’. It’s hassle-free and can make any potential customer look at your website. This will give you real-time insights into how engaged your audience is with your Instagram marketing strategy.

Related: How to Schedule Instagram Posts, Reels & Stories for Free

5. Go live

Going live is a direct way to interact with your followers. Perhaps something exciting’s happening behind the scenes at your work, you have a new product to launch, or you’re collaborating with another brand or influencer. All these are great moments to share with your audience where you can interact in real-time.

Plus, the more viewers and engagement your Live video gets, the more likely it is to be featured in the ‘Top live’ section on the Explore page. So, it’s good to try and get as many people tuned in as possible. And the more you do them, the more your audience will grow.

6. Avoid spamming

Posting too many stories can make your audience bored and push them to swipe to see the next account’s stories. So, play around with posting one or more stories until you find the optimum number for audience engagement. Don’t feel like you have to post exactly this number of stories every day, though It’s important to have fun with Instagram stories for your business as well.

7. Don’t be too formal!

When making any kind of content, it’s important to consider how much your audience will relate to it, so try not to be too formal. So in posting Instagram stories for business, aim to have actual conversations with your audience and have fun with it.

If you need help with writing, Simplified’s AI writer can generate over 50 types of copy in an instant. From captions and keywords to product descriptions, the AI writer delivers.

8. Show the faces and people behind the brand

Humanizing your brand simply means introducing your audience to the people behind your posts. So, post updates of your team on your stories and let your followers get to know you. You can also get real with your audience about what it’s like behind the scenes at your business.

May it be a sneak peek video of a photoshoot or the process of how your products are made, it’s your chance to inspire and stay inspired through Instagram. Luckily, Simplified’s video editor is equipped with templates, a complete media library, and effects and animations. You can easily edit your video here and post it as an Instagram story for your business!

9. Collaborate with other influencers

Having other artists or influencers represent your brand can pull in more people to look at your brand. This also helps when you’re planning an advocacy campaign as influencers can amplify your message and widen your reach even more.

With Simplified, collaborating is simple! Comments, mentions, and edits are made in real time, and you can even assign roles to your team members for easier workflow.

10. Host giveaways, games, and challenges

Lastly, having your followers participate is another great point for your business. Having user-generated content on your Instagram stories for business will encourage other people who relate to them to develop an interest in what you have to offer. Plus, you’ll gain loyal customers through this as well!

Need some inspiration for your next Instagram story?

Simplified has thousands of ready-made templates that you can use, especially if you don’t want to start from scratch, We’ve gathered a few of the best that you can use. Check them out here:

Thinking of doing an advocacy campaign? You can use this template for your Instagram story to further spread the message about your advocacy.

How about an upcoming sale or promo? This template is perfect to use for your stories, especially if it’s a special holiday or event promo.

You can also post a ‘save the date’ Instagram story for your business if you have an important event coming up. Like this template, you can add the time, date, and place to let your followers know about your event.

Related: 2 Easy Ways To Add Closed Captions To Your Instagram Stories

Time to Start Creating!

Instagram Stories are a powerful marketing tool for businesses. They’re creative and engaging and can help you reach a wider audience. Stories are also easy to make, and with the right strategy, they can be very effective in driving sales and generating leads. And with these 10 tips, you’re well on your way to improving your businesses’ Instagram game! You can also use an Instagram caption generator to save time and create attention-grabbing captions for your posts.

But if you want to manage your Instagram story for business and your other social media accounts? Use Simplified AI. It’s an all-around social media management tool where you can design, edit, create, write, and schedule content, plus collaborate with team members and multiple clients. It’s everything you need in one tool and in just one workspace (no need to switch tabs!). What more can you ask for?