There will always be new platforms emerging for marketers to look into and master to stay ahead of the trends. Nevertheless, out of all of the different facets of digital marketing, social media tends to change with the most immediate and drastic results.
Huge platforms in digital marketing, such as Facebook and Instagram are constantly evolving and one would have to stay on their toes as they figure out how to engage on them.
However, through all the change, there is one thing that remains consistent – users want to engage with brands in a personal way. For this particular purpose, Instagram stands out with its unique features. It’s one of the best places for you to promote brand engagement with your users.
With over 25 million businesses using Instagram to connect with potential customers, and a tremendous hike in its growth graph, it’s a no-brainer for marketers to implement Instagram into their social strategies.
In particular, Instagram Stories makes easy for marketers to engage with users, humanise their brands, create leads, and generate customers on the platform.
There is no doubt that the particular platform of Instagram Stories could increase a marketers lead generation and sales. To share a guide on this scenario and how to unfold it was Adrian Seow.
Adrian Seow
Dubbed one of the best-minds in IQI, Adrian Seow is frequently commended for his ability to master technology and utilising it to achieve results. As an engineer graduating from Canada, Adrian took the unconventional route of going into the property line and straying away from his educational roots.
Regardless, he has continuously proven himself despite starting in a field which was foreign to him. Now boasting one of the biggest teams in IQI Eliteone, Adrian continues to impress with and outstanding track record in sales achieved within a very short period.
Sharing his knowledge on the know-hows of integrating sales and social media strategies, Adrian presented his take on how generate valuable Instagram Story leads. He moves away from the focus of Facebook and breaks down the behaviours of users on different platforms.
3M's Strategy
When it comes to social media marketing, Adrian focuses on the concept of 3Ms which are Market, Medium and Message. First, in Market, Adrian encourages sales people to identify their target audience and their behaviours on various social media platforms.
Next, on Medium, he stresses the delivery of the advertisement. Adrian laid out the ideal design, size and presentation of advertisements. He said the presentation of ads would have to be altered specifically
according to each social media platform. The size of videos would differ to fit to certain posts and Stories. A vertical post is always best for Instagram as it fits the whole post, giving audience a full screen experience.
Even though it is constantly overlooked, Adrian stresses that delivery of the ad is crucial to attract the interest of social media users at a glance when they are scrolling through their feed. This will keep your audience engaged, build your brand and convert leads and sales.
Instagram Story Strategy
Adrian also breaks down the different demographics on the two platforms. More users tend to lean towards Instagram compared to its noisier counterpart, Facebook. Many users shifted from Facebook to Instagram as it had less messy content and news and did not rely solely on what others had shared.
When creating social media ads, marketers also tend to overlook the ‘placement’ category. Adrian reiterates the importance of this particular feature when posting an ad, however many miss out on this assuming it is not critical to their posting.
If one does not change it, the platform will leave it on ‘automatic placement’, however to really catch your audience, you must do a manual placement of your ad. It would be best empty out the news feed column and selecting a few placements to your preference and suitable to your target audience.
Users may also not like any in-stream videos, which are ad videos that pop-up while the user is watching something else. This may displease the user as it is intrusive and users will most likely skip through it.
Having more ads pop up is not necessarily better, Adrian shares his opinion that ‘less is always more’.
Any tip Adrian shared was that when running an Instagram Story ad, marketers do not need to have any copywriting as it does not show up. When one understands the concept of 3Ms, you can easily explain it to your client, whereby your copywriting is in the video itself. All designs in the video are your copyrights.
Lastly, marketers also need to focus on what is the Message they would like to convey to their audience. When they have their posting all sorted out, marketers can inspect if they have achieved their target by looking through their ad set level.
Ad Result Analysis
Looking at the chart that pops up ( watch the video at 4:05 ), there are two variables to inspect which are leads and first time impression. Do not fret if your chart varies, as the displays of ads are all dependent on the algorithms of Facebook and Instagram systems.
The social media platform will adjust the display of your ad accordingly after it realises that the first time impressions is dropping.
This is mainly because the platform has been playing the ad to the same group of people. Once the system has detected it, they will shift the display of ad to a new target audience which in turn will automatically boost your first impression rating.
Focusing on the message you would like to relay to the audience, the presentation of the video is the most imperative element. All marketers know that social media engagement is important. It’s one of the best ways to develop trust from prospects.
The Power of Instagram Story
While all social media platforms are great avenues for driving audience engagement and ultimately sales, Instagram is on a whole different level. Instagram also excels in terms of engagement.
Why? Because features like Instagram Stories make it easy for brands to show themselves in a fun and interesting light. It’s easier than ever to humanise a brand.
And this can all be conveyed through your video ad and how you edit and present it.
Marketers should also take advantage of Instagram Stories features to interact with your audience. Instagram Stories give marketers a variety of ways to facilitate easy interaction with users.
With features like geographical location tagging, hashtags, polls, gifs, stickers, and more, growing your following and facilitating brand engagement is simple. You just need a little creativity.
Features like hashtags and geotagging make it easy for users to find you based on location and interest.
However, despite having an attractive video, you may fall short if the message you are trying to convey is not strong enough. It may be a call to action problem. When running ads, it is not just about the target audience, marketers should have a wider perspective.
A holistic funnel of an ad should be presented, whereby you have a good video, a good call to action, and a relevant message for all audiences. It is also important to note that if you are running traffic ads, your landing page has to be fast, pretty and relevant to encourage users to sign up.
In lead generation ads, you should always look into the attractiveness of your lead and ensure there is enough emotion in the lead form to bring about more user engagement. Adrian also advised that keeping things simple may be the way to go sometimes, and not to over complicate the ad.
To wrap it up, Understanding how Instagram Stories works and the benefits marketers can gain from it is half the battle. Now, what you do with the information is what matters.
With its unique visual storytelling ability and strong conversion methods, marketers in any industry and any consumer base can use Instagram Stories. It’s a weapon you need to have in your social media arsenal.
Take advantage of the ease of engaging with fans by using Instagram Stories to build your brand. Show what makes your brand fun and relatable. Implement the features within Stories to easily engage with your audience and help people find your brand on the platform.
Test the waters within Instagram Ads to discover the ROI of putting some of your marketing budget toward Stories.
And as you go forth building out your social strategy on Instagram Stories, keep in mind that no marketing action is worth taking if you can’t measure the results. Be sure to utilize tracking URLs and lead/customer sourcing to determine how your use of Instagram Stories is impacting your overall marketing strategy and goals.
As you can see, in order to generate leads with Instagram Stories, you need to be both creative and strategic. While it’s fairly easy to build your engagement with high-quality stories, converting viewers into customers is a little more difficult.
If you really want to get the most from Instagram and generate leads with Instagram Stories, you need to approach it with a marketing mindset!
