Today is about Instagram STORIES!!! We’re not holding anything back as we give you some of the biggest mistakes you might be making with your Instagram stories, and the things you SHOULD be doing that will help you stand out, convert followers to fans, build relationships, and grow & sell online. 

 

Instagram Stories 

Instagram Stories are POWERFUL. They’re the best way to showcase your personality, get engagement, build relationships with your audience, and showcase your expertise. They’re SO personal.

Business owners and anyone wanting to grow a platform online often get intimidated by stories. OR they’re doing them and NOT seeing the traction or engagement they expected. Does anyone feel this? 

Stories ARE incredible, yet there are some things to NOT do when it comes to creating stories. Things that aren’t helping you and could be hurting your business. Likewise, there’s a LOT of different hacks and things we’ve found SO helpful to know over the years of learning how stories work. 

DON’T:

1. Don’t use stories to vent to the world the way you would vent to a best friend. You can stand up for what you believe, be intentional with not showing up on stories when you are heated at the moment. 
2. Don’t caption using AUTO CAPTIONS, because the point of captioning your stories is for the hard of hearing community to make it accessible. However, the main reason the majority of people consume content online is to skim through fast and move on. The auto-scroll caption feature makes you sit and watch your talking story all the way through, and people won’t do that. 
3. Don’t NOT caption your stories. 
4. Don’t talk for a billion stories dragging on and on without a point or an actual story. People’s attention spans are SHORT. Super slow-talking can frustrate people. Have a point to your stories and think about that in advance.
5. Don’t hide behind your work/product and never show your face.
6. Don’t use a bazillion fonts and different colors every time you post. Stay consistent with your visuals and make sure it goes with your brand. Stick to one or two, but don’t use every single one. 
7. Don’t batch your stories all at once, only posting ONCE each day. The only exception: if you’re on vacation or an event where you’re trying to be fully present. Ideally, these moments should be more of an exception.
8. Don’t be sporadic with posting to stories in general. Try to be consistent if you’re able, such as showing up every two days or whatever works best for you. 
9. Doing a Q&A where you answer every question by talking to the slide and not captioning them. Most people prefer a mix of typed-out answers with talking ones here and there.
10. If you are somebody that gets tagged in a lot of things that other people are sharing. Don’t share every single story that you ever get tagged in, it’s not to not honor the person who tagged you. Don’t share them all the time, in a row and that is the only thing in your story, people will get bored with that. 

DO:

1. Show up every day. 
2. Story multiple times throughout the day, which is better for the algorithm.
3. Use question boxes and other story tools to encourage engagement such as a poll, question box, heart slider, etc. Invite people into engagement using the tools on stories. 
4. Show your face when talking in your stories. We recommend daily for most business owners, and if possible, show your face at the start of every day. 
5. Caption your stories!! Type them out so they’re not scrolling captions. 80% of viewers watch their stories on silent and won’t want to wait to read. 
6. Switch it up, don’t just always show your face every time. Show your life, then talk back to you talking. Maybe the next slide could be a text graphic over a colored background. Think of your stories similar to how you watch tv or a movie, they don’t show the same angle never changing for the entire movie. They switch it up to keep it visually interesting.
7. Use fun gifs and emojis to make people relate to you, laugh, or that helps interestingly tell the story.
8. Share behind the scenes of what you do, inviting people into the process with you. This is important if you are a business owner of any kind. 
9. Share moments of your life that are inspiring or interesting or funny. 
10. ASK QUESTIONS. Invite your followers to you. Start a conversation or topic starter that will invite people into conversation with you. 

 

Show notes 

The Instagram Major: www.theinstagrammajor.com

Enrollment is only open from July 22th-28th

 

The Reels Minor: www.thereelsminor.com

 

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