I'm sure you've heard the big news - Instagram now allows all users to share links in their Stories!
In the past, the feature was available for those users with 10k followers or verified accounts.
Stories offer businesses a unique opportunity to capture the direct attention of audiences and potential customers, drive traffic and increase sales.
"When we first introduced Stories links, the feature was limited to verified accounts or those with a certain number of followers. We've heard from the rest of our community that they also want to share things that matter with their friends and family. Whatever you're into, from cooking to volunteering or shopping, you now have a space to share in Stories - regardless of your account size." - Instagram
If you are a marketer, you probably know that this Instagram update is something that we all waited for. Continue reading to discover the benefits of this feature.
Instagram's link stickers are available to everyone
- What is the Instagram Stories feature
- How to add links to your Stories
- Analyze the performance of your Instagram Stories
1. What is the Instagram Stories feature
The Instagram Story feature is a simple way to share your photos or videos with your followers for 24 hours. Then your Stories will disappear.
If you want your Stories to be visible even after 24 hours, you have the option to highlight them.
What are Instagram highlights?
Basically, Instagram highlights are the Instagram Stories you choose to feature on your profile forever. When you add a story to a highlight, it will be visible even after 24 hours, so it's a great way to promote your products.
For example, at Socialinsider, we are using this feature to highlight our:
- Podcast - Insider Insights, a marketing podcast.
- Events - SocialTalks, the social media conference that we did.
- Studies - every month, we publish a social media study
2. How to add links to your Stories
One of Instagram’s biggest issues as a social media marketing tool is that links in captions aren’t clickable. You can add a URL to your Instagram post caption, but this is not a solution. Plus, it looks inadequate within the platform.
If you want to add links to your Instagram Stories, just select the Link sticker. When people tap on the sticker, they'll be redirected to the page you want to promote.
Here are the steps to add a Link sticker:
- Upload the content
- Select the sticker tool
- Tap the “Link” sticker to add your desired link and tap “Done”
- Place the sticker on your story — like other stickers
Instagram seems to be making huge breakthroughs for marketers these days, with its many Instagram Stories link updates.
For example, did you know Instagram is now allowing customization for text on link stickers?
In an attempt to maybe increase the link clicks on Stories, Instagram goes even further with the personalization process, allowing social media managers that play with Stories to also choose from a range of color options for the sticker display.
Add a call to action for your Instagram Story link
Before posting your Story, make sure you add a call to action. If you want your audience to click on your link, you have to remind them to click the link.
You can choose one of these call-to-actions:
- read more here!
- for more information!
- find out more!
- click at any time to join!
- want more? Continue reading
- Read the tutorial!
Once you've done the steps above, your Instagram Story is ready to be published! Adding interactive stickers or .gif may increase the interactions and the retention rates for Stories.
If you want your Stories to be more interactive, add a poll or a question sticker next to the Instagram link Stories sticker.
Instagram Poll Stickers can help you boost the chances of interacting with your followers in Stories. Poll Stickers provides a novel way for poll responders to strike up a conversation with you.
You have a 24-hour window of time to DM anyone who responded to your IG Poll Sticker. Poll sticker analytics allows you to message your followers by navigating to your Instagram story, then swiping up to view the analytics.
One of the key things about Poll Stickers is that you get a list of people who answered your poll. Just look for a tiny paper plane icon that will appear next to the names of IG account holders.
Click on this new icon (paper plane) to DM them. You can also provide additional information, start a conversation with them, or send them to your landing page with a link.
3. Analyze the performance of your Instagram Stories
There are two options to access Stories analytics for your business profile.
You get insights using the native app or you could choose an analytics tool such as Socialinsider which gives you a complete overview of your profile.
Discover how to improve your content Stories, engagement, profile reach by using an analytics tool.
Within the native app, the Instagram Stories metrics are divided into three sections:
- Interactions: replies and profile visits.
- Discovery: reach and impressions.
- Navigation: taps back, taps forward, next story, exited.
Accessing Socialinsider, you'll get:
- Total stories: How many stories the profile published in a specific period.
- Days with stories: Number of days in which the profile published stories.
- Stories per day: Average published stories per day.
- Average peak reach: How many unique accounts you reach each day in average.
- Replies: Understand how many people reply to your Stories.
- Insights into publishing behavior: See how many stories were published in a period.
- Impressions: It shows you the distribution of impressions for a specific period.
- Reach: It gives the number of accounts that saw a photo or video in your story.
- Completion rate for multiple Stories in one day.
Final thought
Instagram Stories provides you the opportunity to tell your brand's Story and present your content excitingly and uniquely.
Related articles:
- Instagram Stories: 10 Reasons Why Businesses Are Using Them
- Instagram Story Ideas to Engage With Your Audience
- How to Create Engaging Instagram Stories for your Business