Remember when Instagram launched Instagram stories and every one was like nah? Fast forward a few years and Instagram stories are now THE place to be. Not only do I spend more time looking on stories, it’s become something that a lot of people enjoy more than a standard feed post.
Why?
There’s no pressure behind an Instagram story to perform necessarily, the raw unedited parts of your life are easier to share, and it’s easy to consume content. You don’t have to engage unless you want to and sharing your boring daily content is actually more enjoyable to your followers than you think…
500 million people now use Instagram stories EVERY DAY. It’s the place to be if you’re looking to grow your reach on the gram, and if you’re struggling for inspo, think your followers won’t enjoy your daily routine stories, here’s 21 ways to inject some fun into your Instagram stories content.
1.BTS of your day
Show some behind the scenes of your day. Time lapses, baking, cleaning… Honestly, it’s the most boring parts of our day that really are the most interesting to watch. Mrs Hinch is a testament to this! In my opinion they always get the most engagement too.
2. Polls
The Instagram algorithm is all linked to engagement and getting users to interact with your stories regularly. In turn, this helps to boost your visibility and display your grid posts to more of your followers.
Polls are a great, quick addition to any story, whether you can’t decided what colour dress to choose, whether it’s too early to order pizza at 10am (its’ never too early) or what workout you should do the following day. Get your followers involved!
3. Use Cute Gifs
When you search for a specific GIF on Instagram stories they only display a certain amount, I only realised recently that if you know of certain designers who submit their own there are sooo many other cuter GIFS that you can use.
If you search Instagram story on Pinterest you can find loads of different designers GIFs on there. A few of my faves are studiojonesie, vipapier, rizzprints and lizmosley.
If you head over to my Instagram @Nicolelsage I have shared a series of Instagram reels highlighting my fave GIF sticker designers.
4. Q & A Session
Have some spare time? Use the question feature and ask your followers to ask you anything or specific questions for anything that your account niche might be, cooking, fitness, career etc. Either share the answers to your story or film a separate IGTV video to answer all of them.
5. Get To Know You
Over time as you gain followers, your newest followers might not know who the person behind the account is. Connecting with Instagram accounts on a personal level is so important, use a few stories to share a few key facts about yourself every month or two!
6. Hauls
Weekly food shop? Beauty finds? ASOS haul? Get it on the gram! It’s a quick and easier way to consume hauls than it was in the olden days when we posted the whole thing on our blogs.
7. Weekly Feature
Can you create a weekly feature that your followers can expect and look forward to each week? It could be a follow Friday, 10 favourite fashion finds or simply 5 of your favourite items/services/things each week.
Hannah Gale nails this with the HG 10 which she shares each week which ranges from sharing her 10 fave wedding guest outfits to 10 new in clothing items.
8. Blog Round Up
Share 3 of your latest blog posts on your stories for your followers to catch up on!
9. Ask for recommendations/share your favourite suggestions
Use the question feature to ask for suggestions/recommendations!
10. Daily To Do Lists
For the first short of your day share your daily to do list or your plan of action. I personally love seeing what people are getting up to and you can then lead on with stories for those things during the day.
11. Get Followers To Decide Your Outfit/Day
Get a few different options of clothing together and post them on each story and get people to vote for which item to go for! It makes your followers feel involved, engaged and it’s fun!
12. What you eat in a day
Share everything you eat during a day, you could team this up with any fitness stories or your workout of that day.
13. Share your five favourite products/books/shows etc
Do a famous five and share five of your fave things of the moment, be it aspirational podcasts, the shows you need to be watching on Netflix or your top beauty picks. People love discovering new things that the people they follow love.
14. Story Apps
Create perfectly put together Instagram stories with specific story apps that help you to create layouts that can’t be achieved on Instagram alone. Canva on desktop or unfold – create stories are two of my faves!
15. Ask your followers what content they like to see
Use the question feature to see what content your followers want to see more of. Or use the poll feature to ask them what things they enjoy the most. This will help in planning future content that you know is going to be engaging with your audience.
16. Personal stories
Share a personal story. I’ve always found that my most personal stories are the most well received over the years on both my blog and Instagram as it’s because people can relate to issues that can otherwise make people feel really alone. Instagram stories are for that real, raw content and your audience will love you even more for it.
17. Utilise location and hashtags
Use the location sticker on your stories for more exposure, the same applies for feed posts. Using hashtags on stories is another great way to easily increase reach, they can look messy on stories but you can completely minimise these and hide behind GIF’s so you can reap the extra exposure without it ruining the aesthetic of your story.
18. Teasers, make your followers guess
Give your followers teasers on new content that is dropping on your blog soon, a new video that you’ve recorded or somewhere you’re going on a holiday, get them to guess and follow along. It will keep your followers engaged and desperate to find out what’s coming next.
19. Shoutout your fave accounts
Share the love! Shoutout five, ten, twelve of your fave Instagram accounts. Make it a regular feature or do it every now and then.
20. Promote Your Latest Post
Getting your feed post seen with the Instagram algorithm is a continual challenge. But Instagram stories tend to have a higher visibility and engagement than posts, so use this to your advantage. When you’ve posted something new share it to your stories with a GIF over the top of the image to get your followers to come over and have a look.
21. Share your favourite quotes
Share 5 of your favourite quotes on Pinterest for a Motivational Monday feature.
21 ways to instantly upgrade your Insta stories, what other Instagram content ideas are your faves? If you enjoyed this Instagram post, you might also like my 50+ Instagram caption ideas post!
