Wow, nothing interesting is going on today. I don't know what to share.
My coffee's not that interesting. I've got client calls,
which are not that interesting, or I can't even share it publicly.
What the heck do I share today? You know, the feeling,
you just learn that to grow your business on Instagram,
you need to be consistent in your feed posting and in showing up in your
Instagram Stories.
But what happens on the day where you're sitting in your office,
sipping your coffee, thinking, wow, nothing interesting is going on today.
I don't know what to share. My coffee's not that interesting.
I've got client calls, which are not that interesting,
or I can't even share it publicly. What the heck do I share today?
If you've ever struggled with being consistent for your business's Instagram
Stories, you're in the right place.
Because today I have 16 Instagram Story ideas for your business.
And stay tuned until the end where I'm going to share my top secret formula.
Well, not really, but it's really effective.
Stay tuned until the end where I'm going to share my formula for how you can
increase the engagement of your Stories. I'm Elise Darma,
and I've helped thousands of entrepreneurs,
freelancers and creators just like yourself use Instagram to actually
grow your business.
And today I have 16 Instagram Story ideas for your business.
Before I dive into the ideas, I want to lead with a tip and it's this:
with Instagram Stories, I want you to post three times a day.
Yup. You're not going to post once and be done for the day.
The key with Instagram Stories is to post multiple times throughout the day.
Because every time you do,
your Story bubble goes to the very top of your followers' feed.
This is how you show up and stay consistent in front of them.
So to keep it simple, I recommend to post in the morning,
the afternoon and the evening.
With that said my Instagram Story ideas that I have for you are divided by the
morning, the afternoon and the evening. So let's dive in.
Let's cover what you can share in the morning. Here's the first idea.
The first idea is this it's to share today's agenda.
It's that simple.
Now you can jump on camera like this and share with your audience what's coming
up for you that day. Or if you don't feel like being on camera,
you can literally type out what are the main meetings and calls that you have
for the day. Basically take your followers behind the scenes,
into what goes on during your day.
The second idea you can share in the morning is today's number one goal.
So if you don't feel like leading people through your entire agenda,
just share with them what your number one goal is, or your number one focus,
maybe it's to complete a blog post,
maybe it's to hold a fashion shoot, maybe it's to email your list,
or maybe it's just to post to your Instagram,
let your followers know what's your number one focus for the day.
That's motivating to go on as I am right now,
working on my December income report.
The third idea for the morning is how you're feeling in just one.
Yep. It can be that simple.
Check in with yourself and share with your followers how are you feeling?
Are you feeling tired because you didn't get much sleep last night?
Are you feeling super caffeinated?
Are you feeling really excited to accomplish your number one goal?
Check in with yourself and share this with your followers.
This is just one more way that humanizes you as a business.
Slightly overwhelmed - yesterday,
I spent the day onboarding a new team member, so I really didn't do work.
And today I'm just like, Oh my God, I've so much work to do.
And it kind of makes me want to go back to bed.
The next idea you can share is your morning routine.
Do you have a morning routine? Does it change every day?
Share that with your followers,
lead them through the things that you do that gets you in the right frame of
mind for your workday. For me,
it's literally rolling out of bed and making coffee.
And if I can't make coffee with my French press,
I will go downstairs and buy some from the coffee shop.
Then I will open up my laptop. I don't shower. I don't meditate.
I don't run. I get to work right away. And I look at my inbox.
I look at my Slack messages and I just get a sense of what's going on today
because sometimes there's little fires and you need to rejig the rest of your
day. So there you go.
I've just shared a little bit of my morning routine and I bet your followers
would find it interesting for them to get to know yours.
I thought I'd balance out my glitzy YouTube videos with a real behind the scenes
look of what I do on a Tuesday or Wednesday morning when I release it,
I am not wearing makeup. I just had a cup of coffee. I've yet to shower.
The next idea of what you can share in the morning is simply your favorite book
podcast, or even YouTube channel that you're loving right now.
Your followers follow you for a reason.
So if you can give them a recommendation of something that you're loving,
whether it's a book, a movie, a podcast, a YouTube channel,
go ahead and share that with your followers.
And don't forget to tag the creator of whatever you're
recommending in your Story,
because they then will get a notification that you've tagged them
and they get to share that Story with their followers.
The next idea of what you can share in the morning is the number one question on
your mind right now. Maybe it's philosophical. Maybe it's esoteric,
maybe it's strategic. Maybe it's personal.
Feel free to share with your followers what's on your mind right now.
Of course it has to be something that you feel comfortable sharing publicly.
But again,
just let your followers in just a little bit into what your personal life is
or what your mindset is around your business for the day.
Let's talk about the afternoon.
Maybe it's been four or five hours since you last posted to your Stories,
so it's time to post again. What can you share now? Well,
if you shared your agenda or your number one goal in the morning,
the afternoon is a great time to share an update on how your day is
going. Have you crushed your goal already?
Have you gone through half of your calls and your to do's?
I know it doesn't sound that exciting from your perspective,
but your followers will love to see how you are chugging along throughout your
day. Okay, update. Two things done out of six.
I'm really excited about that and I'm showered and energized.
So now I'm ready to do this day. I have a question for you.
I had this idea in the shower. Isn't it funny how the best ideas...
The next idea for the afternoon could simply be a recap of a call that you
hosted or you were on.
So maybe you were coaching someone or maybe you were on a training call or a
mastermind call, whatever it is in your business world.
If there is one takeaway that your audience could benefit from,
definitely share that in your Stories and stay tuned until the end where I'm
going to share a formula that you can use in your Stories so that your people
actually understand the context and why they should care and take action from
them. Just got off the phone with the amazing Becky Keen.
She's going to be doing a training for everyone who's inside of InstaGrowth Boss
on how to sell in the DMs.
And she and I had a really great business heart to heart.
The next afternoon idea is to share a key question that a
customer or a client asked you because chances are,
if one person asks this question,
there are followers of yours who are also wondering this same question.
So go ahead and highlight, Hey,
I was on a call earlier with a client and they asked me this and then go ahead
and answer that question. That is straight up free value for your followers.
So all this week I've been getting a lot of questions about what is a funnel.
I've been talking about the Instagram funnel bootcamp,
but maybe you're not sure if that's what your business actually needs right now.
So I just finished, like literally...
Another idea to share in the afternoon is simply how you take a break. Listen,
you're not a robot. I'm not a robot, I think.
And so make sure you share with your followers, how you take a midday break.
Do you go for a 20 minute walk? Do you grab another coffee? Do you take a nap?
Like, whatever it is share with your followers,
how you keep your energy up or how you recharge throughout your day.
Reason number 212 of why I like to work for myself.
I can nap whenever I please, I mean, it is Friday at five,
so technically work's done, but this is my second nap of the week.
The next idea that you can share in the afternoon is something totally random.
It does not need to be business related at all.
You can share a funny video of your cat or your dog.
You can share something that your kid said that was funny.
You can shuffle a tarot card deck and pull a card and read what it means to
you. Literally something random shows your personality,
shows your interests.
I think one of my most engaged Stories was when I took a shaver
and I shaved like little lint balls off my sweater.
That got so many replies because people wanted that same tool.
So don't be afraid to share something completely,
a non-business related random, try it out and see what happens.
Let's talk about your evening. What can you share at the end of your workday,
or even before you go to bed to cap off your Stories. Now,
if you shared your agenda in the morning and then your update in the afternoon,
the evening is a great time to share a recap of the entire day.
I know this all sounds logistical and maybe boring, but I would give it a shot,
share it with your followers and see if they respond to or resonate with seeing
how your day goes.
You're really positioning yourself as a leader when you share with your
audience, what you set out to accomplish,
and then you recap at the end of the day, what you did or didn't accomplish,
and why.
Another idea of what you can share at night is simply your plan for tomorrow.
You see where this is going. There's kind of a theme.
There's a lot around planning and doing, but that's business for you.
So if you've got a big day coming up tomorrow,
or if you are going to tackle the things you didn't get to today,
share that with your audience. So yeah,
my Mexican adventure has come to an end for now.
Check out my latest post for the area or the region that I was in.
I'd never heard of it until I got there.
And tomorrow I'm off to Orlando for Funnel Hacking Live.
Another thing you can share at night is how you decompress after a work day.
Do you take a bath? Do you make dinner?
Do you put your phone on airplane mode? What works for you?
Go ahead and share that with your audience.
Another thing you can share in the evening is a hobby that you have outside of
work. Are you a marathon runner? Do you love cross stitching?
Do you take improv classes?
What's something totally unrelated to your business that you are really
interested in? Go ahead and share that with your followers.
The last idea of something you can share in the evening in your Stories is
something personal. Share a snippet of your family life,
maybe at the dinner table or going for a walk,
maybe share some scenic shots from around your neighborhood,
but don't be afraid to mix the personal aspect into your business
because at the end of the day,
we're all humans and we all do business with humans.
Are you ready for my secret formula?
That will help you boost engagement to your Stories. It's this,
when you're sharing in the morning, the afternoon, the evening,
I like to actually share my Stories in a sequence of three Stories just
shared at the same time. So the first Story will be context.
What's the context or what's the setup that your viewer needs to know
in order to care about the rest of your Story?
This is something that a lot of business owners skip.
So don't forget this setup phase. It could be something like this. Hey,
Instagram, this morning,
I wanted to share with you a thought that I had a coffee shop.
The next step is to actually share what you want to say in your Story.
Now that you've set it up with context, what's the meat of what you want to say?
Go ahead and share the actual information or the thing that happened in the
second part of the Story. And by the way,
if it takes more than one 15-second Story clip to share this middle
part, that's totally fine. There's no limits. There's no rules.
You just want to follow this general flow: set up, share,
and now we're at the last part of the Story formula,
which is a call to action.
Give your followers a reason to engage with you. Now,
the easiest thing you can ask them to do is simply say,
"Reply to this Story if you have any questions or if you want to chat more",
but if that doesn't really make sense for the context of your Story,
you can always just use a poll sticker.
I love to use the poll sticker to ask for engagement or feedback back
from my followers who are viewing.
Plus the algorithm loves to see when your viewers actually see your
Story from beginning to end, and then they engage at the end of it.
So when the algorithm sees that people are tapping your poll or sliding
the slider, it's likely going to show it to more people.
If you liked these Instagram Story ideas for your business, well,
I've got something really cool for you. It's called Story Vault.
Story Vault is 800 ideas for your Instagram Stories,
covering various seasons of your business. Whether you're needing visibility,
more engagement, more leads, or more sales.
So go ahead and head to StoryVault.co or I'll leave the link right below
this video. And make sure to grab Story Vault today. To ease and revenue.
I'll see you in the next video.
Thanks for watching today's training all about Instagram Stories for business.
If you liked this video,
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