In fact, social video generates a whopping 1200% more shares than text and images combined (Source: Hubspot)! If you’re wondering how you can leverage Stories for your brand, this guide shares tactics that will help expand influence, improve your social media and Insatgram video marketing, and foster better relationships with your Instagram followers.

#1 Create awareness & excitement about upcoming events, product launches, any new happenings going on in your brand

Instagram video marketing is ideal for promoting your events and new product launches. Because Stories content vanishes after 24 hours, each day is another opportunity to get the word out about your “new thing”. You’re giving your followers one more reason to check out your stories with new content to look forward to daily.

#2 Instagram Video Marketing Can Take followers behind-the-scenes

Events once closed off to the public are now accessible using Instagram Stories. You can expand on your Instagram posts by taking your followers backstage to get the real scoop to what your brand is about. Perhaps show them the details of how a new product or app is created. Providing more in-depth coverage brings the posts on your IG homepage to life. 

Taking your followers behind-the-scenes creates new opportunities that humanizes your brand and gets followers to relate to you. 

#3 Hold fun contests

A cool way to get followers engaged in your brand is through Instagram contests.  Prior to hosting a contest, be clear on the final goal you desire to achieve with this promo.  Contests are great strategies to generating buzz around your name. 

With Instagram Stories, still have a branded hashtag that followers will use for the contest entry.  This of course brings more exposure to your brand.  Then encourage them to send direct messages in response to your stories content based on your contest theme where they could win a prize.  Holding regular contest can keep your current and new followers involved in your brand and taking interest in your stories. 

#4 Drive traffic to campaigns or blog content

Use Stories to highlight a new blog post you’ve just published.  Shoot a short video underlining the major details or just expand on one topic within your post.  This is a cool way to drive traffic from your social media platform to your blog content. 

You can also take this video and repurpose it into other forms of content.  Upload it to YouTube, post it on your other social sites like Facebook, send it to your email list to increase its reach online.

#5 Further enrich follower engagement and communication with your brand

Because you can only respond to stories content using Instagram’s direct messaging, this platform promotes one-on-one engagement with your audience, allowing you to connect deeper and build better relationships.  Host Q&A sessions where you inform your followers to post their questions via direct messaging.  Respond to questions within your story, giving individual credit to your followers who took the time to participate.

You can create killer content using this strategy.  By hearing directly from your audience, they’re providing you with precious future content ideas for your blog and/or website.  Take each of these inquiries and add them to your content creation.  It’s a winning tactic towards continually solving and piquing the interest of your audience.

#6 Build a vault of extra content!

Posting stories daily accumulates a nice treasury of content to be retrieved for future social media marketing or blogging campaigns.  Although Stories content disappears the following day, you have the option of downloading them to store for later use.  Imagine having all this extra content handy when you’re looking for content to share with your audience.  One of the biggest challenges marketers have with their content strategy is posting content regularly.  Your Instagram video marketing campaigns greatly positions your business to never run out of content to share…further keeping your followers engaged with your brand. 

Conclusion

Yes, Instagram video marketing is yet another social media feature for marketers to leverage towards boosting brand awareness, improving relationships with their followers, and ultimately increasing their bottom line.  The key is to choose a few of these tactics (perhaps 2-3), implement them in your marketing and test to gauge which resonates best with your market.

Ready to bolster your video marketing to attract leads and customers to your brand? Reach out to us here and let’s chat! We’re qualified to help.