Activity on Facebook and Twitter has decreased considerably over the past year while Instagram continues to grow, both in usage and engagement.
As a marketing platform Facebook is still a very powerful domain to reach one’s target audience.
Instagram, however, and specifically, Instagram Stories with its visual storytelling offers huge potential for NPOs and social impact campaigns to reach the platform’s audiences.
Here are five useful tips to reap higher rewards from Instagram Stories.
1. Post Regularly
Instagram Stories only remain published for 24 hours.
This is the uniqueness of this function so in order to build up a following you should post as regularly as possible.
Any good social media page should have a regular posting schedule but the difference with Stories is that after 24 hours your posts will disappear so having a tight and consistent schedule.
The platform also aggregates these Stories, so its algorithm shows the Stories it deems most likely to be watched first.
ALSO READ: 5 Fundraising Video tips for NPOs, social impact campaigns & fundraising
2. Save your stories to Instagram Highlights
As mention, an Insta Story only remains visible for 24 hours.
One way to save it is to save the story to a Highlights folder on your page.
You can set up multiple highlight folders and categorise them according to the nature of your posts for future viewing or to re-use, or even to simply remember what you did previously.
Visitors to your profile can then view these highlights at any stage to familiarise themselves with your brand.
Highlights also preserves the insights for each story so you are able to revisit them and remind oneself how they performed.
3. Live Video on Instagram
Instagram Live video is a very powerful tool to grab the attention of users online.
People love live video and engagement is usually much higher.
It’s a great way for them to react in real-time with the nonprofits and causes they care about as well as get a better idea of the people behind these.
4. Instagram Stories Adverts
Regular posting of Insta Stories is important, however another way to grow your audience is to uses promoted stories.
These promoted stories will pop up in between the regular stories and do not disappear after 24 hours.
They remain for as long as you are paying. This can be found in Facebook’s Ad Manager alongside all the other placement options.
5. Remember to tag and share
You can tag other profiles in your Instagram Stories and those pages will be notified.
This is important because if a page is tagged that page can then share the story to their own page.
Likewise, if your page is tagged in a story, you are then able to add that to your story for 24 hours.
It is another useful way to keep your stories active and relevant, plus, if another page shares yours, it amplifies your reach considerably.
Sharing is caring and it works both ways so remember to tag and use one or to hashtags.
For more information on how to reach donors using Instagram Stories, we recommend Facebook’s Social Good website, which has a ton of case studies, tips, and guided lessons.