How To Get More Instagram Story Views

For micro-influencers who are looking for ways to monetize their audience, more views on their Instagram stories are on their wish list.

Are you a micro-influencer with audacious goals to turn your Instagram channel into a platform? Are you looking for strategies to launch a successful influencer marketing campaign? If so, this article will be spot on!

I will be telling you quick hacks that will turn your Ig stories into real money-making activity.

Instagram Stories Are One Of The Top Marketing Channels In 2019

You have probably noticed from doing your micro influencer marketing that your stories get more views than your regular-organic posts. If you want to monetize your account, don’t get discouraged just because you don’t get hundreds of likes on your posts. You still can show your prospect marketing partners lots of reach via Instagram stories.

Stats That Stand Out About Instagram Stories In Almost 2020

Stories really did start out as a simple add-on feature. Instagram publicly copied them from Snapchat which is what happens in the tech world anyway!

With brands being able to connect so well with their audience through Stories content (especially with increasingly interactive options like Stories polls, stickers, and story highlights, it’s not surprising that the number of Stories is catching up to the number of posts people are publishing.

Stories vs Feeds

46% of all content on Instagram is coming from Stories, falling only slightly behind the 54% of organic posts on news feeds.

Image source: socialbakers

Notice that this image is from January 2018 and this makes me predict that by 2020 stories will surpass the number of posts that brands share on Instagram.

You might be able to tell if my prediction is right if you check right not your circle of Instagram connections. What do you notice? Where do they post more? I personally post more frequent on Ig stories than in my feeds. How about you?

Marketing Essentials In Influencer Campaigns

Now that you’re gonna be playing a bigger game, we need to get you to get some new words that will help you discussing money with your future clients.

✔️ Audience Metrics. Your future clients are brands or local business owners who are looking to get more visibility. They probably have heard about influencer marketing but that doesn’t mean they will open their wallet without any proof that they will get something in return for their bucks. This is why you need to always carry your metrics.

I recommend you getting a subscription with Later.com. They produce clean reports, especially for stories and hashtags, which is intelligence that you will need.

✔️Storytelling Mastery. One of the essentials I teach my influencer marketing clients is storytelling. Listen, this is a degree on its own. So, make no mistake, that professional storytelling will take you some learning and some practice with the big warning: you must be OK with sucking at this at first. And it’s ok. 🤷‍♀️

The essence of a great story is “its ability not only to make you care, but also to make you forget; forget your worries, your problems, even your pain. The story helps you enter a new, magical world that is extremely appealing. The person who helps you achieve such a thing automatically becomes extremely appealing too.” Says one of the most famous storytellers in the world, creator of Toy Story, Andrew Stanton.

Do you think marketing is about recording a video and share with a target audience? There is more!

What kind of process occurs in our brains that can help us experience all of the feelings evoked by a good story?

Let’s say you are in a meeting room and you have to attend a PowerPoint presentation by one of your colleagues. During this process, two parts of your brain, the Broca’s area, and the Wernicke’s area are activated.

These are the language-processing areas, which help us decode words and determine meaning. Other than that, they don’t do anything. Therefore, when this process takes place alone, it is almost impossible for our brains to feel engaged with the speaker, and we consequently lose interest.

When we are being told a story, however, things change dramatically. Not only are the language processing parts in our brain activated, but so is any other area of our brain that we would use to experience the events of the story.

In essence, you are not just listening to a story, you make yourself part of it. Evidently, a story can put your whole brain to work. And yet, it gets better. You can read more about this topic here.

Sorry for taking you on this side-track, but I figured you would not mind a deeper explanation with the science of persuasion!

There is something extraordinary happening during the narration of a story, something that helps the brains of the narrator and the listener to synchronize.

✔️Consistent Voice: if my client wants to hire an influencer, I will make sure they have a consistent voice. A captivated audience, interested in knowing more about my product or my services.

For example, a local restaurant that wants to launch a new vegan menu will be interested in collaborating with a micro-influencer that features vegan food, consistently. We look to see if they have a real community.

We check their stories, highlights, and comments, way before reaching out to them.

This is something you need to be aware of. You never know who is watching you! So always stay consistent with your voice. And hey, if there are reasons to stay out of your brand voice, you can always explain on the post or clean it later.

✔️Charisma: a charismatic voice will always be preferred by brands who are looking for micro-influencers. And the best way you can show this is via stories. Show us the real you! Smile more. Be intentional about showing us your charisma! It will help you tremendously.

✔️Responsive: Stories are fast! They disappear in 24 hours so you want to make sure you can be able to respond and engage with those users who are seeing your story. This is crucial.

A pro tip: If you notice a brand looking at your story, don’t be afraid of sending a personalized message to let them know you appreciate them. Say something that stands out. Don’t be a copy cat!

I manage accounts for brands and the messages we get are way too spammy. We don’t pass those to our clients. So, be aware of this! Brands have marketing teams and they won’t recommend you if you’re just another one.

Enough with lecturing, let’s get you more views!

For the sake of keeping this post under 2,000 words, I am assuming that you are a pro at designing templates and graphics. If not, I wrote this article with my favorite templates. Now let’s go to the hacks!

Finding The Right Time

You already take careful consideration and planning when managing your Instagram account. But it’s time to take it to the next level. And that means optimizing your posts.

Finding the right time is one step. Consider when your followers may be online. You can do this by checking on your Instagram analytics.

Simply go to your “My Profile” page and take a look at your metrics. When do you see the most traffic? Maybe you have early risers checking your posts by 9 am. Or perhaps your followers lead busy lives and don’t have time to check out Instagram until bedtime?

These times can help when planning for stories. Think of them as deadlines. You want to hit these peak times as much as possible to ensure the most readership.

Furthermore, keep your most active time zones in mind. You might live in sunny Los Angeles, but if the majority of your followers are in New York City, you may want to post according to their time zone and not your own.

I feel like getting the timing right takes care of at least 50% of your growth.

Invisible Hashtags: How To Add Invisible Hashtags To Your Instagram Story

Do you want more people to see your stories, Instagram profile and all the hard work you put in? OH YASS you do, that is the whole point, right? Then you need to learn how to add invisible hashtags to your Instagram story.

There is a way to put your favorite #hashtags into an Instagram story. There is also a way to make them invisible so no one else will find out your secret hashtags, or even that you use them at all!

When you have written your hashtag, simply tap the pen. We love this pen since it can match the text to any color visible in the photo.

Drag the pen across the screen (to the background of the text) until the hashtag matches the background.

Don’t know how to edit colors or want to try something else? You can also hide your hashtags with a sticker!

Why Put #Hashtags In Your Instagram Story?

When people search on hashtags there’s a story-section! This means that your story is visible to everyone who watches your hashtag’s story!

Pro tip: go for the very popular hashtags here. This isn’t the same as your Instagram feed. Hashtag stories are pinned at the top and they are hard to find, so you need to use the ones that are getting lots of views.

Location Tags

There’s a feature on Instagram that many people either don’t know about, or don’t really understand how to use. This feature is geotags. And the benefits of using geotags on Instagram can actually be really valuable to your business if you learn to use them properly!

First, in case you’re not aware, let’s make sure you know what a geotag is. Instagram defines it as: “Geotagging is a technical term for storing the latitude and longitude of your current location with your photo. This data is collected by the GPS device in your phone or tablet and is accessible to Instagram if you grant permission.”

Basically, when you take a photo, the coordinates of where you were are attached to that photo. If (and only if) you tell Instagram to publicize this location, you can tag your photo with the location where you are. To be clear, Instagram will not post your location data on any photo until you choose the “Add to Photo Map” during the upload process.

Adding location tags (geotagging) is also a great way to get more views. If you don’t want to show the location of if the story already looks too busy, hide it behind a sticker, but always tag the location (or any location even if you’re not there).

Pro tip: find location trends and check yourself in those! This will help you to hack that Instagram app!

Call To Action (WITFM)

Remember what you just learned about storytelling? I feel that this is an area where even the best influencer can fail. Because they don’t understand the art of storytelling.

A great call to action integrates your story and makes the audience to take action in an extremely appealing way.

This is very important, especially because you’re about to get hired by brands, and they want to see their money! So you will need some practice!

Some tips to get more conversions and responses from your call to action:

✔️Use teasers. If you’re about to reveal something very interesting, tease me for a few days. Seduce me. Make me remember that I have something very special that can’t miss, and make it very easy for me to remember.

✔️Ignite conversations where your users need to tag a friend. This can almost double your views.

✔️Novelty. Our brains respond to novelty. If you’re offering me something I’ve never seen, I will consider it.

✔️Urgency. Add times and due dates, and remind your audience as much as you need, so that they take action. You will be surprised by how many people wait last minute to do something!

✔️Tag your own account so they can follow you. This is so common sense but we forget!