5 Tips to Improve your Instagram Stories

Most marketers agree that Instagram plays an important role in their social media strategies and that Stories is one of the most effective types of content. But are your brand’s Stories really working? The conclusions of a study conducted by Socialinsider give us five keys to consider to improve your publications and make this type of content as effective as possible.

1. The smaller the number of followers, the greater the percentage of reach

It is a mistake to believe that having a greater number of followers (a usual parameter to measure the success of a brand) will result in a higher rate of reach.

Socialinsider analyzed more than 135,000 Instagram Stories from more than 2,500 company profiles, all of them with at least 1,000 Instagram followers. The result: accounts with less than 10,000 followers reach an average of 9.12% of followers with their Stories, while accounts with between 10,000 and 100,000 followers have an average reach rate of 5.22%. The trend continues, as the analysis shows that Instagram accounts with more than 100,000 followers reach an average of 4.59% with their Stories.

Therefore, as the number of followers increases, its range rate may decrease, so keep that in mind.

2. Brands with fewer followers have to strengthen engagement

Although brands with a smaller number of followers arrive with their Stories at a higher percentage of them, they are not as successful in keeping their attention. By measuring the abandonment rate (the percentage of impressions that leave history when closing Stories on Instagram), the data reveals that brands with more than 100,000 followers had an average abandonment rate of 4.37%, in contrast to the average abandonment rate of 7.43% for brands with less than 10,000 followers .

It follows that, although accounts with fewer followers reach a higher percentage of their audience with their Stories, the content within them may not be so convincing to keep viewers hooked until the end.

3. Stay on six daily Stories

Socialinsider found that retention rates (percentage of impressions of the last story divided by impressions of the first story within a 24-hour period of time) fall by approximately 15% as they move on to the second story of the day. However, brands that publish up to 6 stories per day can keep the participation of more than 70% of viewers.

4. Post more content of your brand in Stories

Although Socialinsiders believes that the optimal amount of Stories per day is limited to six, the data also shows that brands can increase their reach by publishing more content of this type. In all accounts analyzed, regardless of the number of followers, the reach rate increases as the number of Stories per day increases. The same can be said for the printing rate, which also increases as more daily stories are published.

In addition, previous research has shown that Instagram users value brand Stories more than content published in the Instagram feed.

5. Use videos to keep attention

Last year, a Quintly study showed that Instagram videos received more interactions than images. Although this data did not focus on Stories in particular, this new research by Socialinsider indicates that videos generate greater engagement than images. The rate of advance of the images (the percentage of impressions that have an advance to see the next photo or video in a Story) is approximately 5.7% higher than the videos. In addition, the dropout rate tends to be slightly higher for image Stories than for video Stories.

Keep in mind that Instagram only allows 15-second videos, but longer videos cut into segments of that duration can be published.