TACTIC #1 Tag Your Location (as a county)

Adding a location tag to your Instagram Story can help you get featured in Instagram’s Story Search for that location.I’ve seen up to 5 x story views on videos that have been featured in the location stories. County’s seem to have the highest success rate e.g. Kent, Sussex etc.

I also tested this on one of our client’s accounts and it work just as well!

🎯 How To Do It

Step #1 Create a video in Instagram Stories and click the sticker icon.

Step #2 Click the location sticker, search a county and add it to your story.

👌 BONUS TIP 👌

Don’t just think about adding the county your business is based in, think about other counties you’d like to target.

Test and try a variety of counties and measure results. I’ve tested various types of locations and counties seem to work the best.

TACTIC #2 Use Hashtags in Instagram Stories

Similar to the previous tip, adding the hashtag sticker to your stories can help you get featured in Instagram’s Story Search, this time for hashtag search.

You need to make sure you use the hashtag sticker and don’t just type in the hashtag as text. The hashtag sticker should look like the example below.

👇 How To Do It

Step #1 Create a video in Instagram Stories and click the sticker icon.

Step #2 Click the hashtag sticker, type a hashtag and add it to your story.

TACTIC #3 Go Live

When you go live on Instagram Stories, you can choose to enable a 24 hour replay of the live stream.

Have you noticed that more and more live streams seem to pop up at the start of your Instagram Story bubble feed (that’s not a technical term, I’m referring to where the arrow points in the image below).

This is a great opportunity to gain more exposure within Instagram Stories whilst usage is still fairly low!

🎯 How To Do It

Step #1 Swipe right at the bottom of the Instagram Story camera screen and click ‘Start Live Video’.

Step #2 Once you’re done, click ‘end’ and then ‘share’ at the bottom of the screen.

TACTIC #4 Share Subtitled Videos In Instagram Stories

People who watch your Instagram Stories with their phone on silent can only see the visuals with no audio.

We know that roughly 85% of Facebook video is watched with no sound, and I’d hazard a guess that Instagram Stories are somewhere similar.

Therefore, adding subtitles to your videos will help capture the ‘silent viewers’ that would normally skip the video. See example below.

👌 BONUS TIP 👌

Use the Cut Story App to easily cut your videos into 15 second clips which are perfect for Instagram Stories.

🎯 How To Do It

There are various Apps, Software and services that can help you add subtitles to your videos for Instagram Stories.

Here are some options for you.

FREE

Apple Clips: This App automatically adds subtitles to your videos as you speak and record video.

PAID Service

Rev: Rev charges $1.00 per minute of video to create subtitles for your video.

BONUS: Free $10 coupon for Rev.com

PAID Do It Yourself

Camtasia: $199 for the license but a seriously awesome piece of software (my favourite option, we use this).

TACTIC #5 Share Content Unrelated To Your Product/ Service

People don’t go on Instagram Stories to hear about your products and services. They go on there to be entertained, educated, inspired and to get to know you once you’ve twigged their interest.

Start creating real life stories. Share what you get up to at the weekend, what you do in you spare time, what you’re interests are etc.

It shouldn’t just be about your business/ industry.

TACTIC #6 Share Teaser Videos On Other Social Platforms

One of the most effective and least used strategies to drive eyeballs to your stories is to leverage your other social media platforms.

How often are you downloading one of your stories, posting it across your other social platforms and telling people to go and watch the full story? Not enough.

Here’s an example from Social Day earlier this year.

🎯 How To Do It

Step #1 Create your Instagram Story and click the download button.

Step #2 Upload the video to another social media platform with a description & profile link.