Instagram is renowned for the sheer variety of features it offers users. When it comes to engaging customers, Instagram always has something fresh up its sleeve for you to use.

But the most interesting feature that Instagram has to offer is Stories.

Stories are temporary videos or images that appear on your profile avatar but disappear after 24 hours. This ephemeral nature requires you to exercise a little creativity in order to make them resonate with your followers. 

Read on to discover how to turn your Instagram Story into a conversion powerhouse and create Stories that resonate time and again.

Focus on visuals to keep followers locked in

Instagram is full of high-quality visual content. The platform is all about beautiful images, and that includes your Stories.

Your followers see dozens of Stories every day. They appraise each one for only a second or two before deciding whether it’s worth their time. That means yours need to be eye-catching and engaging, every time.

At the same time, build your brand’s aesthetic into your Stories wherever possible. Visual cohesion is vital for engaging followers, connecting your presence across your website, social, email, and other marketing channels — your Story is no exception.

Create branded and engaging Stories, and your followers will give you their attention. Once you have their attention, you can start selling to them.

Instagram offers plenty of room for you to flex your artistic talents, with an array of customization features for your Story. Both the drawing and text functions come with a variety of colors, brushes, and font types so you can find the right colors that match your brand.

You can even add your all-important logo to your Instagram Story too — this useful guide breaks down how to do it for you.

Swipe up for more conversions

If you want to drive conversions from your Story, include a swipe-up link wherever possible. This lets people who view your Story to swipe up, thus opening an in-app webpage on which they make a purchase.

Make it clear to your followers that they should swipe up on your Story. Don’t spell it out for them though — a simple “swipe up for more” or an upwards-arrow emoji will suffice. Make it clear with your Story’s copy what your customers should expect from the link, and use it as a teaser to encourage followers to swipe.

While links are a great way to drive conversions from your Story, they come with a caveat. Linking in Stories is only available to those accounts with more than 10K followers.

Consequently, Stories are only available to businesses with a relatively-established follower base. However, there is a way to circumvent this, which I’ll touch on later.

Take advantage of everything that Stickers have to offer

When it comes to creativity, Instagram offers plenty for its users to play with. Nowhere is that more evident than its dazzling variety of Stickers. These include: 

• Hashtags

• Mentions

• Product

• Questions

• Time and date

• Polls

• Location

• Music

• Emoji sliders

• GIFs

These Stickers are rich and diverse, providing you with plenty of scope for driving conversions from your followers.

Some, such as polls or emoji sliders, are perfect for encouraging engagement from your audience. Inviting customer feedback locks them into your Story, so you can build on that with a product-led Story to follow it up with.

Stickers can also be used to generate hype for a product launch. Countdown timers, for instance, play on FOMO and build anticipation for an event, product launch, or similar release.

Finally, on a more base level, Stickers simply make Stories look and feel more attractive. On a social platform that places such emphasis on visuals, the addition of a few Stickers make your Stories land with a splash.

Embrace Instagram’s built-in ecommerce functions

I mentioned earlier that Instagram has a great many features for users to take advantage of. For businesses, one of these features that are well worth investigating is its ecommerce functions.

Instagram integrates with a number of ecommerce platforms to let merchants expand their sales channels and sell products via their feed and Stories. Shoppable posts are perhaps the best example of this, letting you tag products in feed posts so customers can click and buy natively in seconds.

But Stories too can be turned into a sales channel. The aforementioned Stickers also include a Shoppable option, letting you ‘stick’ products on your Story so customers can purchase them in-app too. This also has the added bonus of letting accounts with less than 10K followers sell via Stories without relying on links.

Create an engaging Story that showcases a bestselling product in an eye-catching way, ideally while being used. For instance, if you sell sunglasses, show a model wearing them while having a great time at the beach. 

A solid Story is the cornerstone of your Instagram strategy. But don’t just let it sit looking pretty — follow the tips about and transform it into a conversion powerhouse. Engage your followers, embrace Instagram’s ecommerce features, and start driving conversions today.