By pbump@hubspot.com (Pamela Bump)

There are over 200 Million businesses on Instagram. And, according to the platform, 90% of people on Instagram follow a business.

Why could this be? As people are increasingly using social media to research prospective purchases, Instagram serves as an outlet for brands to creatively show their products, services, or happy customers in action.

One of the ways that brands on the app share content with audiences is through branded Instagram Stories. These Stories enable audiences to learn more about your brand and what you offer — generating interest with prospective buyers and creating trust.

In this post, discover high-quality Instagram Story tips and tricks from businesses that effectively use the feature on the platform.

If you’ve been on Instagram for a while now, you’re probably more than familiar with its Stories feature. But if you’re new to the platform, here’s a quick explanation of Stories:

While an individual might use a Story to show photos or videos from a vacation, work, or other aspects of their daily life, brands often use this feature to highlight photo or video content about their product, brand, or a topic related to their industry. By doing this, the brand might entertain and gain awareness from Instagrammers who enjoy tapping through random Stories.

To make your content even more interesting, you can also add GIF stickers, text overlays, filters, and interactive features — like polls and quizzes — to Stories after you upload or shoot them. You can also optimize your Story by adding text overlays with relevant hashtags or by adding handles of users that are affiliated with the content.

Whether you’re new to the app or a pro, you might be wondering where to start when it comes to using this feature for your brand. You might also worry that this strategy could be expensive, time-consuming, or require graphic design skills.

The truth is, creating Instagram Stories can actually be pretty simple and fun for your social media managers. Case in point: recent HubSpot research found that 46% of marketers already leverage the feature in their marketing strategies, and 55% are planning on increasing their investment in Stories for 2022.

To help you plan your Instagram Story strategy, we’ve compiled a list of 25 brands that have mastered the app feature. Although the brands on this list are larger companies, all of them have strategies that could be easily scaled to fit the marketing budget of smaller companies.

25 Brands Using Instagram Stories

Abercrombie & Fitch

Abercrombie and Fitch, a clothing company, often uses Instagram Stories to call attention to their offers. By sharing high-quality product photos, they’re more likely to capture audience attention, spark interest, and inspire someone to make a purchase.

In the image below, Abercombie and Fitch shares a Story featuring an exclusive online-only item and includes a “Tap To Shop” link.

Takeaways:

Abercrombie and Fitch stands out with its high-quality product photos, and the copy …read more

Source:: HubSpot Blog

Author: Aaron