There's been a lot of change lately. First of all, I had a baby. Secondly,
the head of Instagram confirmed that photos and videos in your feed are actually
not that important.
So if I were to tell you that understanding this one thing could be the
difference between wasting your time on Instagram and actually bringing in
sales, would you try it? Trick question. Duh, Elise, of course I would.
In my humble opinion,
you might not be bringing in sales from Instagram because you're treating it
like the influencer way and not in that business way that you need to be as
a small business owner.
And you're also likely using the Instagram features that have the least amount
of sales power. But the good news is, by the end of this video,
you are gonna have a four point strategic checklist that you can employ in your
business today to get more sales. And just so you know,
I'm not pulling these strategies out of thin air. My student, Adrienne,
used these same strategies and her online business went from $0 to over
$120,000 in just eight months. Yeah. I'm about to show you how.
Alright, if you have been spending hours crafting the perfect post,
the perfect Reel,
and you feel like the engagement you're getting back is crickets, nada, zero,
no one's caring, it might not be because your content is bad.
Your content might actually be good.
But we have just learned from the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri,
that what viewers and followers are prioritizing is not the content
that's posting in their feed.
It is the content in Stories and in the Instagram DMs.
"Basically what people don't realize is they think of Instagram as a feed of
square photos. And if you look at how people share,
all of the growth has been in Stories and in DMs over the last five years
or so.".
That's right,
Instagram users are spending more time watching Stories and checking their DMs
than they are scrolling the newsfeed, Instagram's confirmed it.
Stories and DMs are more important than the photos and videos in their feed.
In fact,
Instagram has even asked their entire Stories team to focus on messaging so that
there is greater synergy between Stories and DMs.
Because more time is spent in the DMs than in Stories,
and more time is spent in Stories than in the feed. I know,
it's kind of mind bending, but the point is,
we now know where people are hanging out. It's in Instagram Stories and the DMs.
Now, as a business owner using this free app, AKA Instagram,
this is great news for you because Stories take way less time to create
than posts, and Stories convert more of your followers into buyers than posts.
That's what I like to call a win-win, saving time and making more money.
So as a business,
it's time to stop thinking about Instagram as just being a newsfeed for sharing
photos and videos,
and it's time to start taking advantage of real-time Stories and how they can
totally boost your sales. Not sure how to do that? Well, you my friend,
are in a great place, because you need a Story strategy,
and that's exactly what I'm gonna share with you in this video. In fact,
prioritizing Stories and direct messages is exactly what my student Adrienne
did,
who went on to generate over six figures in her business in just eight months.
So here is your four-step strategy that you can use in your business today using
the power of Stories.
The first step is to tell a story in your story that has a beginning, a middle,
and an end. Storytelling is the very foundation of human communication. Wow,
I'm getting deep, real fast. But when you are sharing a simple story,
even though that Instagram Story disappears after 24 hours,
you still wanna use basic storytelling techniques to hook people in.
So when you're trying to build a beginning, a middle, and an end in your Story,
and you don't wanna spend 10 minutes working on this,
here's the format and the flow that I suggest you use. Set up, Share,
Call to action. That is the equivalent of my beginning, middle, and end.
Here's an example of what I mean. So for the beginning of my Instagram Story,
I might say, "Are your office plants dying?" That's the beginning,
and also the setup of hooking people in and getting them to watch your Story.
The next part is the share. So then I would go on to say,
"Here are three tips to keep your office plants thriving while you work."
And then I'd go ahead and share those tips.
So this is now the middle of my Instagram Story.
Then to wrap it all up and end my story,
I would finish with a call to action,
meaning some sort of action that the viewer should take next. So for example,
"Reply to the Story with the word 'fertilizer' and I will send you my free plant
guide." That's it. That's how you tell a story with a beginning, a middle,
and an end. And what I suggest to do is to do this three times a day.
So do this in the morning, the afternoon, and the evening.
That way your Instagram Story is gonna be popping up at the top of people's
feeds whenever you add new content to it.
So you're gonna be very top of mind for your followers.
Your second strategy is one of my favorites.
It's to use Instagram stickers to end your Story sequence.
So remember I just talked about having a beginning, a middle, and an end? Well,
sometimes you have a Story and you don't know how to end it or you don't have a
clear call to action.
The easiest thing you can do is insert an Instagram Story sticker.
So I'm talking the poll sticker, the slider sticker, the quiz sticker,
these are all great stickers to get engagement from your audience.
And this is what the Instagram algorithm loves.
The algorithm loves to see people watching your Stories to the end,
and then engaging with them. It's gonna tell the algorithm, "Oh,
people like this Story.
I'm gonna make sure even more followers see it." So when in doubt,
use an Instagram Story sticker at the end of your sequence.
It could be as simple as, "Did you like this Story?
Yes or no?" Or you can quiz your followers and ask them, "Hey,
what color was my coffee cup that I used?" The point is,
end your story sequence with a sticker that's going to encourage your audience
to engage,
and the Instagram algorithm is going to bless you with even more views because
of that. And bonus, when you use Instagram Story stickers,
you can even follow up with people based on how they answered your sticker.
So if you ask them, "Hey, do you want more information on my plant guide?
Yes or no?" Everyone who clicks yes with the poll option,
you can then go ahead and DM them and send them a link to your guide.
They're literally asking for more information. It's beautiful.
The third Instagram Story strategy is one that I love and one that I should use
more often, and it's this:
give your audience a code word to reply to your Story with so that they're
actually opting in for an action that you have offered to take.
Now that sounds really confusing. So here's an example.
I made this Story while I was filming myself getting ready,
and as I was talking about what I was doing, which was a live workshop,
I included a call to action for people to reply to that story with a code word,
and then I would then follow up and send them a link to sign up for my free
class. So that's what I was saying in my Story.
So you can have any type of action be your follow-up, right?
You can send them a link to your guide, or your booking page,
or a free consultation, whatever it is that you want to offer.
The point is you want to explain to people what it is that you're offering.
And if they want that thing, they just have to reply with a code word,
and you can make up that code word to be whatever you want it to be. Now,
this is a brilliant strategy to generate leads from your Instagram followers and
then cultivate and nurture that relationship with them and turn them into sales
eventually.
But there is a tool that I love that can actually automate this process.
The tool is called ManyChat, and this is how you can automate your DMs.
So by setting up an account with ManyChat,
you can actually create a rule so that when anyone replies to your Story with
that code word, ManyChat is gonna fire off a reply back to them.
So you can preload the link to your guide or your call booking page,
whatever it is that you're offering in that DM that they're going to get
instantly.
So they're going to get that link way faster than if you were manually replying.
And you don't have to do anything.
You can literally just continue doing your hair and ManyChat is gonna fire off
those DMs. So if you feel like you're ready for automation in your business,
I highly recommend you check out ManyChat.
I have a tutorial on how I use ManyChat in my business,
and I'll leave the link for this video below in the description of this video.
And I also have a code for you that you can use when you sign up for ManyChat
too. The fourth Instagram Story strategy, and the most important is this.
The power of everything that we've talked about in today's video is in the
follow up, the f. u., some people call it.
Follow up is one of the most key foundational,
most important business rules that exists out there.
Because if you don't follow up, you're literally leaving money on the table.
So what do I mean by following up? Well,
all these great Stories that you're now creating are going to encourage two
things. People are either going to reply to the Story,
which is going to generate a DM request from them to you,
or they're going to just send you a DM, which again,
if you guys haven't messaged each other before,
that's gonna be a DM request or they're gonna be in your inbox.
So the whole point of this Story strategy is to generate DMs.
DMs are that private two-way conversation between you and your potential
customer. So when you ignore your DMs,
you're literally ignoring potential future customers and sales.
So check your DMs every single day or have a team member do it because you wanna
see who's replying to your Stories and you wanna see who's engaging with those
stickers that you're using in your Stories.
So if people are choosing the yes option from the poll sticker and wanna be sent
more info, someone's gotta follow up with them and send them more info,
and you don't wanna ignore them. When people are interested,
you gotta get in their DMs right away because they're hot, they're hot leads,
and hot leads are prime to buy. With these strategies,
you are now ready to make even more sales from your Instagram Stories. However,
you might be stuck on the content piece.
What should you actually share every single day? Every morning, afternoon,
and evening in your Stories? Well, don't worry. I got you.
Watch this video next to get 12 Instagram Story ideas for free and tailored to
your business. This isn't for an influencer, this is for you,
the small business owner. See you there.