How to Use Stories for Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing represents a huge chunk of marketing on Instagram. You see all these celebrities representing big brands on their profiles, and to cut a long story short – it sticks. The images become ingrained in our minds, the product becomes associated with a personality, the brand gains prestige. That is, after all, why all these celebrities and brand ambassadors are called influencers – their online personality is utilized to influence a large consumer base. But an influencer doesn’t have to be a mega-celebrity and influencer marketing is a more plausible option than most small business owners think.
Can your business handle influencer marketing?
There are also micro-influencers, whose follower base boasts anywhere between 10 000 and 500 000 people, or even nano-influencers whose follower count falls within the thousands. These are people who have earned the trust of their followers and their influencer status as experts in their niche. This is great news for smaller businesses because it means that you can also employ an influential figure whose follower count and pricing fit your scale and budget. When you find someone suitable, you’ll need to work together to develop a strategy that works well with their style, the community they have built, and of course, your campaign goals. And it’s not all about permanent posts and #ads – Stories will be an extremely important part of your collaboration. The “why” is simple – because Stories boost engagement, help cultivate trust, and they can even be used to sell your products. In this post, we’re bringing you the how of using Instagram Stories for influencer marketing.
Send audiences to your website
With the “Swipe up” feature, an influencer can link directly to your website through their Stories – provided that they have at least 10 000 followers, since the feature is unavailable to accounts with less than that. This feature helps reach a much wider audience than the “link in bio” which can’t be found unless a person lands on the influencer’s profile – but Stories are always there at the top, grabbing all the attention. And considering that micro-influencers gain their reputation as niche experts, you’ll have all these trusting followers scurrying to your website to see the latest product recommendation. With tools such as Storrito, they can use visually enticing templates and animate the Swipe Up link to compel the viewers to follow the call to action. Once they land on your website, the rest is up to you.
Run contests and giveaways
When you want to get the word out about your business, contests and giveaways are one of the best tactics for reaching a wider audience. The idea is to offer a product to a lucky winner, and the conditions for entering the contest are certain actions that serve to boost your visibility. This is always following your account and commenting underneath a certain post, but marketers sometimes add other conditions such as sharing the post to a Story or participating in an image/video contest in order to boost their efforts. And when you’ve got an influencer on board, you’ll be sure to send a more resounding message and reach a wider following. Because so much happens in Stories, they’ll be an important part of this whole race. Aside from announcing the contest through Stories in order to direct the viewer’s to the contest post, it also helps a great deal when the influencer showcases the prize through snippets in their Stories. This pulls the viewers in and makes the prize coveted. The prize draw can also be done through live chat to build an event around it and encourage those who didn’t win to keep following you for more prizes and great products.
Host takeovers
When you swap accounts with the influencer for a certain period of time, you’ll be giving them the keys to your account – and getting the keys to their carefully cultivated community. It works great for all parties included: you both get fresh content, more visibility, and a chance to borrow on each other’s influence. Stories are crucial for takeovers because you’ll be using them to guide the audience throughout the takeover and engage with them up close. Pull all the best tricks out of the book – make the audience excited about the takeover, take them behind the scenes and show them something special, and use our best hacks to make your Stories stand out. The influencer will be doing the same on your account as well. This is a great opportunity, so pull out the big guns. If the takeover is lasting for an entire day or longer, you can use Storrito to schedule Stories for auto posting so that you can create enticing Stories in bulk and rest easy.
As always, Stories are a valuable marketing tool that can be used in many different ways. They’ve proven essential for influencer marketing as well and there’s always more room to get creative with them. Put them to work when you harness the power of influence on social media – and you’ll be happy with the results.
Written by Angelina Harper.