How To Use Instagram Story Highlights On A Business Account- Instagram Revamp Series P3
Its day 3 of the “75 days to sell-out” challenge where we teach you the necessary steps to take on your Instagram account to get it prepared and ready to host a massive HOLIDAY SALES where you get to experience the Sold Out feeling in your business!
Today we are going to be talking about one Instagram feature that can guarantee better customer engagement and thus, better sales via effective optimization.
This feature is none other than the Instagram Story Highlights.
Unlike Instagram stories that disappear after 24 hours ( much like WhatsApp story status), the Instagram story highlights give its users the option to archive and save these stories as a collection that do not ever disappear and remain accessible until they are manually deleted.
This feature, since its inception, is used by over 500 million accounts worldwide and can yield great returns when used effectively in a business account.
Hence, it is important for business owners to learn how to properly optimize their story highlights for sale and audience nurturing.
In this article, we would share how you can use your Instagram highlights effectively, to increase sales and engage with your audience as a business.
Why Instagram Highlights Are A Must-have ?
With Instagram highlights, you can;
- Showcase your best products,
- Give your audience necessary information about your business ,
- Answer frequently asked questions,
- Engage with your audience and
- Draw attention to something new in your business.
What's better? You can arrange and categorize all these information in one place.
This saves people the amount of time and energy it would take to scour the entire page looking for what they want.
Highlight Ideas for Small Business Owners
A typical business page should be able to answer a potential customers questions and give the all the information they need about the brand.
Without these contents, the prospects are usually left confused and may result to asking you questions in your comments/Dm’s or to just leave.
In order to save time (used in answering questions repeatedly) and increase customer engagement, the following highlight categories should be present in your business account ;
- Brand Intro (About Us )
This highlight category is created to introduce the brand to new followers.
It gives new follower/visitors all the information they need to know about the brand like
- What they do
- Where they are located
- Who they serve
- Their achievements and growth
- Details about their company, work environment and staff (optional)
2. FAQ’s
This is the section where you get to answer some common questions you are asked bout your business, products or services.
Now you can refer your new followers to this highlight section when the need arises (instead of having to repeatedly answer them)
3. Your Products/Services
This is the section where you state the products and services you offer. For product-based businesses, especially those with a wide variety of products, this section is one of the most important and must be kept updated at all times.
4. Reviews/Testimonials
This highlight category serves as one of the most crucial for every online business.
Why? because it is the bedrock for building credibility and trust.
People want to see what others are saying about your brand, products and services. They want to see the honest reviews and testimonials from other customers.
It is important to always keep this category fresh and up-to-date. Let new visitors know that your products/services are being enjoyed by other people.
This helps them trust you faster and better.
5. Tutorials/ Go-to Resources
This is also a great way to build credibility. What betterway to toot your horn than to show your new visitors and old audience that you know your onions in terms of niche knowledge.
For example, a natural haircare-product business may choose to drop weekly tips and tutorials on how to properly wash natural hair or how to detangle without losing too much hair and the likes.
This makes your audience perceive you as an expert in your niche and are more willing to buy your products.
What's more? You get extra contents for testimonials/reviews when they try out these tutorials and get great results.
Its a win-win!
Other highlight ideas you can create (depending on your niche and nature of business) are;
- New Products/ ebooks/ classes etc (where you provide details and little snippets on a new launch)
- Blog posts (with embedded links to the your website articles)
- Meet the CEO (where you give your audience a sneak peak into the life of the CEO)
- Milestones/ Achievements /Awards/Certification (where you can show case your little and big wins!)
- Brand Partners/ Ambassadors
- Influencers
- Links to other social accounts
Do’s and Don'ts of Instagram Story Highlights
It is also important to remember some of these helpful tips/rules when using Instagram Highlights:
- Keep the story highlights simple and descriptive
- Follow a brand theme (like similar icons or color palettes)
- Showcase only important topics and delete outdated contents.
- Keep the highlights updated consistently.
- Keep your Highlight categories between 5–8 highlights (leverage only the most important ones and avoid creating redundant highlights just because you can)
- Don't post too many stories in one highlight (although each highlight has a 100-post limit, you don't have to reach that number as it becomes too lengthy and discouraging to consume)
Conclusion
In conclusion, Instagram story highlights remain a great way to create and share content that helps your audience know, like and trust your brand better.
It is a great way to introduce your business to new followers as well as keep the existing followers up to date.
A good highlight section may just be that needed featur to boost your sales these coming season. Get creative and experiment with this kind of content.
Don't think you could do this alone? Then, reach out to me on WhatsApp for Instagram Revamp services. Its time to get your Instagram page popping!
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Until next time,
Keep Blooming.
Laural Charlie
