When looking to build your brand awareness, increase your number of conversions, or strategize your digital marketing, Instagram has become a staple platform. Similar to other social media websites, your content is ranked through data collected from content-rich posts relevant to your services and customer interests. When optimizing your page, it is important to shift your focus onto your Instagram Stories, as well as your Posts. This tool allows you to connect with your audience on a deeper level through engaging calls to action and video content of your services from planning to completion. Throughout this article, you will learn how different available features for Stories can help you boost your ranking on Instagram using the projected trends for 2022.
Importance of Posting Instagram Stories
Similar to SERPs, there are several factors that Instagram takes into account when ranking pages, such as average session duration, audience interaction rate, and overall follower count. Unlike standard posts, Stories can include longer content with engaging additional features to keep more people on your page for a longer amount of time. Through additions such as stickers, you can include calls to action buttons that allow users to click, vote, and lead back to your website. Each of these actions contributes to the likelihood that you will appear higher on the feeds of those who already, or not yet, follow you. Also, Stories differ from Posts in that you can include links that are clickable for jumping to new webpages. By including backlinks to your web pages on your Story, you can simultaneously build your ranking for Instagram and search engines. As social media gains popularity and makes advancements throughout 2022, the weight it carries on SEO and overall goal conversion is increasing. Promoting your business on Instagram is a great way to generate brand awareness and increase your customer base.
Build Up Brand Awareness
Posting on Instagram is a simple, effective way to incorporate visual content into your overall brand. With so many features, layouts, and options to choose from, Instagram allows you to be as creative and informative as you would like to accomplish your goal conversions. Using specific color palettes, fonts, and themes give your brand a look and feel for your audience to associate it with. Continuing this trend from your Posts to your Stories is a cohesive solution to building your brand awareness and promoting multiple forms of content.
Swap Photos for Video Content
Usually, social media posts are composed of photos and visual content, but stories are a great opportunity to utilize video content. According to research on social media trends, videos currently make up more than half of all stories, and are expected to increase in significance throughout 2022. When ranking content for which will be displayed higher on a user’s feed, Instagram will take in account both how much and how long your content is viewed. With its increasing popularity, video content is less likely to be skipped over, increasing your potential audience. Being a content of longer duration than a photo, you can keep your captured audience for a longer period of time, which increases the average session duration.
Utilize Hashtags & Links
A large part of successful SEO is due to creating a number of backlinks that lead your audience back to pages of your website. As the number of backlinks for your site increases, your overall ranking for SERPs increases as well. When posting a story relating to your business, services, or a recently completed project, it is essential to include the relevant link from your website to allow for increased conversions and boosting your ranking. You can add these links simply by tapping on the screen where you would like the link to appear, and type it in. Instagram also offers sticker features on stories for both links and hashtags. By utilizing these, you can turn backlinks and popular keywords into clickable call-to-actions. If you are looking for other ways to improve your ranking in terms of search engine results, contact Boston Web Marketing to learn more. The key to including hashtags is using relevant keywords and popular search terms found through research relating to your field. You can increase the likelihood that your content will be seen by using hashtags that are currently trending.
Take Advantage of Sticker Features
Besides hashtags and links, Instagram also allows you to include additional opportunities for engagement in the form of stickers. One of the most popular of these options is the ability to ask a question. Although this seems like a straightforward feature, this call-to-action can be interpreted to fit your social media goals. For one example, you can shape your future content and services offered to fit your customer demand by asking your audience what they are more or less interested in. You can better accommodate your followers who are viewing without the sound, or have difficulty hearing by including a captions sticker to automatically translate the video audio for those who are viewing without the sound, or have difficulty hearing. More stickers you can include to boost your overall ranking are:
- Location: Tag your business or store to allow for viewers to map out directions.
- Donation: Allow those viewing your story to donate to a nonprofit organization of your choice.
- Countdown: Inform your customers about upcoming events or specials and allow them to keep track and countdown in real time.
- GIF: Adds an animated image, or GIF, onto your posted story for added visual effect.
- Emoji Slider: Ask your followers to rate how much they do, or do not, enjoy something by sliding the scale.
Connect With Your Audience
Instagram stories are an easy and effective way to connect with your audience and boost your engagement. According to the ranking algorithm, those with higher levels of engagement are more likely to have their content boosted to the top of the feeds of those who are already, or not yet, following them. As mentioned above, you can accomplish this by including action stickers such as asking a question or using an emoji slider. Another great way to connect with your followers is by using stories to give an inside, behind the scenes look at your business. This is your chance to show the ins and outs of your services and the faces behind them all. By giving this level of transparency, your followers will feel more connected to your business while being a part of the entire process from start to finish. For more tips on increasing your audience engagement on Instagram, read our blog.
Contact Boston Web Marketing for Social Media Optimization
If you are looking to improve your social media in 2022 to increase your amount of goal conversions, optimizing your Instagram stories is a great place to start. By building brand awareness, sharing photos of your services from behind the scenes to finished product, and including sticker features, you can increase your social media presence and online traffic to your website. For more information on using SEO tools to help your business grow, contact Boston Web Marketing at 857-526-0096, or fill out or contact form.