Tips on Improving Your Instagram Story Engagement

If you'd like readers to spend more time on your Instagram Stories, but you're not quite sure how to go about that, this article should be a big help for you. Below is a discussion which includes a number of different ways you can increase readership of your Instagram Stories, and the engagement your readers have with those Stories.

Include a 'Tap for More' prompt

This is one of the easiest things you can do to increase engagement with your Instagram Stories. Within the Story itself, include some text and an arrow graphic which informs users that they should tap on the right side of the screen in order to see the next segment of your story. Even though the story will automatically progress forward after 15 seconds, it must be remembered that simply allowing the time to pass before progressing to the next page is a passive act, rather than an intentional one.

If your object is to create greater engagement with viewers, you want them actively involved, and this will help in that regard. Your users will no longer be bystanders because they're actively involved in progressing the story, and it often helps to create a sense of curiosity in your viewers.It's also much better for you to encourage viewers to tap on the screen to advance to the next segment of the story so that they don't swipe on the screen, which will exit the story. You can also get pretty creative with this 'Tap for More' prompt, for instance by asking users a question which will pique their curiosity, so they'll want to keep viewing in order to find answers to those questions.

Provide content your users will want to save

As one example of this, you could provide your viewers with attractive wallpapers for their mobile devices, and share them throughout your Story, so they can be screenshotted and used on the viewer's phone. As your Instagram story progresses, you could include a slide right before your wallpaper which says something like "Interested in seeing a cool wallpaper?", and then displaying the wallpaper on the next screen.Don't get to thinking that this is a tactic which only businesses or graphic designers would use, because literally, anyone can display wallpapers that are worth saving. There are also plenty of image-editing tools which will allow you to create wallpapers, and possibly couple them with inspirational sayings that your viewers will appreciate.

Carry on a conversation

A great way to get feedback from your audience, or to gather questions they might have is by using the Instagram question sticker. One simple way of doing this is to take a selfie, and then use the question sticker to solicit any questions from your viewers that might come to mind. You can use this in some really strategic ways to gain useful insights into your readers so that you can understand their buying habits, as well as their interests in products, or just in reading future content.

Encourage followers to DM you

When you encourage followers to DM you, it provides an avenue for ongoing communications that can be of great value to you now and in the future. The object of conducting a survey like this is to have users screenshot the survey or a multiple-choice questionnaire, include their answers, and then return it to you in an email or DM.The first thing you should do is establish a goal for your survey, for instance, gathering feedback or learning more about your audience. Then you should decide what type of survey you want to produce, probably a multiple-choice survey or a questionnaire which is open-ended and allows users to get creative with their feedback.Once you've chosen a suitable question and some potential answers, you can go about designing your Story graphics. You should also create a Story slide to include before the survey and after it, so that you can provide clear instructions to users about how to fill out the survey, and a follow-up slide which reiterates those instructions.

Use 'Hold to Read' to increase story time

As most people know, when you hold your finger down on an Instagram Story, it stops and does not advance to the next logical segment. If you ask viewers to 'Hold to Read', that same thing will happen, and they'll spend more time on that particular page than they normally would have. There are a couple of very popular ways of using this little tool to your advantage.First off, you can create a long piece of text, and request that your viewers Hold to Read. Whatever text you include here should be very well-written and interesting, so that viewers don't feel like they're wasting a bunch of time by doing the Hold to Read. Another way you could use Hold to Read to your advantage is to put similar images adjacent to each other, and ask your viewers to identify the differences between the two images.

Ask viewers to turn the sound on

Most of the time, Instagram viewers will be watching your Stories with the sound off, so you should make an effort to get them to turn the sound on in order to get extra attention from your followers. Of course, once they do turn on the sound, you'll have to provide them with something interesting and engaging, so they won't feel like it's a waste of their time.One of the ways you could do this is to include a video of you speaking, and then overlay that video with text saying "We need to talk", along with a volume button, or possibly a speaker. After that, you need to deliver some compelling kind of message which will appeal to your viewers.

Make your responses more exciting

Even if your viewers do respond to simple 'yes' and 'no' questions, they probably won't remember them a few minutes after the event. In order to make your story more engaging for users, try turning up the volume on your responses, and instead of simply replying 'yes', say something like 'You're darn-tootin'!", or "Absolutely, positively, 100% right!".Another way to make your text more memorable is to ask your viewers what they're struggling with or to provide them with some kind of value that you want them to take away from the experience. This is a time to be creative because you want your viewers to remember the experience, and prolong the engagement in their minds.