Instagram Stories let you share short, ephemeral content that, compared to the posts on one’s Instagram Feed, are much more engaging. Much of what makes them so impactful is the sense of urgency to consume the content before it disappears in 24 hours.
Instagram Stories are a popular content type that many marketers leverage to diversify their campaigns and reach a wider audience.
But let’s take this further: you’re clearly thinking about including an Instagram Story strategy in your influencer marketing approach.
Because using Instagram Stories for influencer marketing can significantly improve your results.
An estimated 500 million Instagram accounts use the Stories feature every day. As a marketer, this is a massive audience you won’t want to miss out on.
According to Insider Intelligence, Instagram Stories alone are predicted to generate a revenue of $15.95 Billion in 2022.
Image via Insider Intelligence
A 2022 study by Rival IQ revealed that on average, brands are posting Stories 11 times per month. The study further found that the top 25% of the most active brands on Instagram publish Stories at least 17 times every month.
Image via Rival IQ
This emphasizes the growing importance of Instagram Stories in marketing. Using Instagram Stories for influencer marketing, therefore, is a great way to engage your audience via their favorite influencers.
Let’s take a deeper look at how to successfully use Instagram Stories for influencer marketing.
Table of Contents
How to Leverage Instagram Stories for Influencer Marketing
We explained above how influencers can use Instagram Stories to captivate and engage a wider audience. So they’ll also help you to reach their loyal audiences and can get them interested in trying your products.
With Instagram Stories, there are many options for influencers to get creative using stickers, location tags, animations, etc. There’s also very little pressure to create Instagram Stories with near-perfect videos and crisp pictures, which makes them more relatable.
While Instagram in-feed static posts were traditionally highly curated images, conversely Instagram Stories were designed to be used for more authentic, casual content.
Your Instagram influencers give their audiences a peek into their behind-the-scenes footage with their Stories, as opposed to posting in-feed professional videos and pictures.
The marketing options with Instagram Stories are near endless, including:
- Brand mentions
- Product integrations
- Product reviews
- Leveraging Q&As
- Quick polls
- Countdown to product launches
- Instagram account takeovers
- Contests and giveaways
You can hire influencers to create engaging and high-converting Instagram Stories using some or all of these ideas.
If your marketing budget is tight, you can opt for Story creation by micro-influencers. That way you won’t have to incur high influencer marketing costs.
Let’s discuss some of the other more creative ways to use Instagram Stories for influencer marketing in the next section.
1. Conduct Quick Polls
Poll stickers on Instagram Stories let you create quick polls for your audience. This is a great way to engage your audience while gaining marketing insights from them.
Making your audience feel like you value their opinion makes them want to participate even more. This technique in particular allows you to have an influencer gather consumer insights about your products or services.
Polls are also a means of seeking feedback from your customers.
Take this quiz from BuzzFeed for instance: it’s a simple yet engaging way of gathering market insights.
Image via Instagram
2. Host Q&A Sessions
A Q&A session gives your audience a chance to ask questions to their favorite social media influencers about your brand or products.
You can host Q&As with popular influencers from your niche on Instagram Live and then share them on Instagram Stories. To get more participants, ask the influencers to promote their upcoming Q&A sessions on their page.
Alternatively, you can simply use the “Question” sticker on Instagram Stories and gather questions your audience might want to ask your Instagram influencer that way. You can then have the influencer answer those questions and you can share the responses to the questions on your Stories.
Here is an example of one such Q&A session, hosted by WomenShealthUK.
Image via Instagram
3. Arrange Influencer Takeovers
An influencer takeover involves letting an influencer control your brand’s Instagram account for a certain period of time. They can use this time to connect with and engage your audience via Instagram Stories.
Additionally, you can have them promote the upcoming takeover on their own page. This way, they bring their audience with them to your page and help you grow.
It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement because your influencer also gets exposed to your audience!
Besides acquiring new followers, another advantage of takeovers is that the influencer brings their creativity on board. This gives your audience two major bonuses: a fresh perspective and new content.
For instance, Summer Fridays had a series of get-ready-with-me takeovers for several weeks in 2020. They hired skincare influencers to create tutorials and showcase their favorite Summer Friday products on their Instagram Stories.
Here’s what those Instagram Stories takeovers looked like.
Image via Instagram
4. Organize Influencer Events
Another way to leverage Instagram Stories for influencer marketing is to invite influencers to an event and ask them to share updates about the event on their Stories.
How exactly does this work?
First, organize an event and invite several influencers from your niche.
Next, encourage those influencers to talk up the event in advance to create buzz and anticipation around it.
When event day finally comes, influencers can share videos and pictures of them at the event via their Stories. This way their audience gets the behind-the-scenes event experience through the eyes of the influencer.
On their Stories, they can tag your brand and the products being promoted at the event. Essentially, the influencers are acting as brand ambassadors on Instagram for your event. This is a great way to build hype around your brand!
5. Start a Countdown for Product Launches
Countdown stickers on Instagram Stories help you build buzz around upcoming product launches. Countdowns help your influencers build hype around your product launch and get their audience excited about it.
You could have them highlight a few important features and unique details about the upcoming product. This will keep the excitement building prior to launch.
You could also ask influencers to give sneak peeks into what the users should expect with an upcoming product launch or event (but just enough to make them curious).
6. Promote Your Contests and Giveaways
This is another way to attract new audiences using Instagram Stories for influencer marketing. You can ask influencers to promote contests and giveaways featuring your products via their Stories.
Here’s an example of a contest:
Image via Instagram
Contests and giveaways are powerful marketing tools because the lure of a reward immediately grabs people’s attention and their interest. And you can make them even more impactful by co-hosting these contests with an influencer.
The contest and giveaway strategy, especially when promoted with influencers via Instagram Stories, helps bring a tremendous amount of attention to your brand.
7. Post Product Tutorials
Stories are a casual way of sharing tutorials as compared to tutorials shared through Instagram in-feed posts.
Creating professional videos for in-feed posts takes time and effort, and Instagram Stories gives you a more simple and casual approach.
Influencers using Instagram Stories for tutorials can explain their favorite features, how they use the products, and what makes the products better than others on the market.
Instagram Stories also gives influencers a chance to get creative. For instance, they can share their personal tips and hacks on different ways of using a product or how to use your brand’s products more efficiently.
Here’s an example of a tutorial series called How-To Hauler by Beautycon:
Image via Instagram
Seeing trusted influencers using your products gives them extra credibility and increases the chances people will try them. That’s why product tutorials are a great way of leveraging Instagram Stories for influencer marketing.
8. Product Features
This strategy for using Instagram Stories for influencer marketing involves hiring influencers to promote your products on their Stories. They can simply share product pictures, features, sneak peeks, etc. to create interest around your new or upcoming products.
While featuring your products, they can drive sales as well using unique links or coupon codes.
These links also help you track your influencer marketing results individually by influencer so you’ll know which influencers drove the most traffic and sales.
FAQs
1. How can you use Instagram Stories for influencer marketing?
Here are some ways to use Instagram Stories for influencer marketing:
- Conduct quick polls
- Host Q&A sessions
- Arrange influencer takeovers
- Organize influencer events
- Start a countdown for product launches
- Promote contests and giveaways
- Share product tutorials
- Display new products
Use these tips to leverage Instagram Stories for influencer marketing and see the results for yourself!
2. Are Instagram Stories good for influencer marketing?
Yes. Instagram Stories are excellent for influencer marketing! With 500 million accounts posting to Instagram Stories every day, the potential reach is enormous.
The most active brands on Instagram post Stories at least 17 times every month.
3. Do Instagram influencers get paid for Stories?
Instagram influencers can get paid for promoting brands, whether they do it via an Instagram story, post, or any other format. Influencers with a small following, like nano influencers, may post in exchange for free products. The vast majority of influencers charge for promotions. An influencer’s rate sheet depends on the number of followers they have and the type of partnership requested by the brand.
4. Why are Instagram Stories so effective?
Stories are short, easy to consume, and disappear in 24 hours. Using Instagram Stories, influencers can upload as many behind-the-scenes updates as they want. This makes them attractive and engaging to the audience, and it gives brands room for creative partnerships.
5. Is it better to promote Stories or Posts on Instagram?
In 2022, Instagram Story promotions are more effective than Instagram in-feed promotions, although they are commonly used together. This is partly because Stories have become more popular than in-feed posts causing them to have a higher reach. The most popular Instagram content type will vary by each individual influencer’s creative strengths and audience preferences.
Ready To Try Instagram Stories in Your Influencer Marketing?
If you’ve been considering adding Instagram Stories to your marketing strategy, it’s time to widen your scope and find some effective influencer partners. In 2022, Instagram Stories are a powerful combination that you don’t want to leave out of your social media marketing strategy.
You can use Instagram Stories to highlight your unique product features, promote your brand, launch products, and more.
Start using Instagram Stories in your influencer marketing campaigns and give your results a major boost!
