Instagram stories are a great way to engage with your followers if you are a blogger or a business! But thinking of Instagram Story Ideas when you are newer to the platform can be difficult! So if you are looking to grow your Instagram account or just looking for some fun Instagram story inspiration then keep reading for my favorite ideas. Because I am sharing 15 Instagram story ideas to grow your account.
I have compiled 15 generalized Instagram Story Ideas that you can slightly adjust to fit your brand and that will help you better engage with your followers. These should help to encourage your followers to engage with your Instagram more. Which in turn can lead to an increase in link click on your Instagram account and followers that like and trust you more!
But before we jump fully into the Instagram story inspiration I want to quickly mention why Instagram stories are so important for growing and bettering your account!
Why are Instagram stories important?
Instagram stories are a great way to share what you are all about and get the opportunity to engage more with your followers! Which ultimately leads to more view and more engagement!
Views: people are increasingly watching stories more than the scroll through their feeds.
Most people only look at the first few new posts so if the algorithm isn’t your friend then stories can be a fantastic way to get your account seen by more people.
Engagement: people are also now engaging more with stories than they are posts! You are more likely to get responses to questions asked in a story than a post and more likely that people will swipe up to shop rather than going to the link in your bio.
Some general tips for Instagram stories:
Show your face! Ideally try to talk as well but you can ease into Instagram stories even by just showing your face in a pic. People prefer to see people rather than objects on Instagram stories.
Add captions. Somewhere between 70-80% of Instagram story watchers don’t watch with sound so make sure to add helpful captions of what the audio said.
Post regularly. You have to be regularly and actively posting in order to create a strong community and really connect with your followers. For starters I recommend always having at least 2 stories up.
15 Instagram Story Ideas
{ Instagram story ideas to help grow your following and account! }
Idea 1) Host a challenge
Challenges are a great way to get your readers involved with your account more and if they share the challenge on their Instagram you can start to reach their friends as well!
Create a challenge that is relevant to what your blog or brand is about.
For example- fitness accounts could do a 30-day ab challenge or a 7-day clean eating challenge! Make up blogs could do a 7-day new product challenge. Get creative!
Idea 2) Show off a haul
Hauls are a great way for you to talk about your favorite brands and products in a natural and engaging way! Don’t just show the products, make sure that you are talking about them and going into detail.
This is a great chance to show off what you like to your followers!
Idea 3) Share a funny story
Your Instagram stories do not need to be business focused all the time! Go ahead and share a funny story of something that happened to you recently. Make sure your followers get to see your personality.
Making your Instagram account relatable and one people want to check back to is so important. Which makes this idea one of my favorite Instagram story ideas for creating better relationships with your followers.
Idea 4) Tutorials
Tutorials are an awesome Instagram Story idea because they help to establish your expertise to your audience.
Showing that you know what you are talking about by doing a tutorial helps to build trust. Plus they are fun to film and edit.
The best tutorials are ones that are a little different. Stay away from really basic things like “how to do a messy bun” if you are a beauty blogger unless you put a twist on it.
Idea 5) Share recent favorites
It’s a great idea to follow up a haul with updates on what products were your favorite!
You can also get into a routine of doing either weekly or monthly product favorites for different categories. Give your followers something they know they can look forward to.
Idea 6) Shareable templates
Shareable templates are an awesome way to improve engagement!
There are plenty of different ideas that you can use to make a template related to your brand and then put it up with a caption saying “screenshot blank version on the next slide”.
A few ideas for these are:
This or that lists (anyone who shares will circle which they prefer!)
Favorites boxes (anyone who shares will type in what their favorite is for that category)
Goals list (same as above for goals)
Random facts (create a cute background and title it random facts and put in some boxes for them to fill in)
Any shareable content is one of the best ways to sky rocket your reach on Instagram. It can get your account visible to a lot more people. Making this a super fun and engaging Instagram story idea!
Idea 7) Shout out to your favorites
Doing shout outs to your favorite bloggers/creators on Instagram is a great way to continue to build a positive community.
Go above and beyond and talk about WHY they are your favorites rather than just a screenshot of their account!
Idea 8) Story takeovers
Story takeovers are another way that you can help build a positive community.
You can ask other bloggers/creators to take over your Instagram stories for the day (or a couple hours) or you can take over theirs or a brands!
A fun twist is to ask your spouse/kids/friends to take over your Instagram stories for a couple of hours. They often create the funniest and high engagement stories!
Idea 9) Do a poll series
Polls are a fantastic way to get engagement on your Instagram stories as well as a way to get to really know your Instagram followers.
Setting it up as a series will get people even more engaged. Try posting 5+ related polls in a series of Instagram stories to really get to know your followers.
Idea 10) Host a Q & A
Another way to get increased knowledge of what your followers want from YOU is to host a Q & A.
The day before ask your followers using the Question tool for questions they want to know from you. That way you can sort through the questions and answer the most popular ones the next day.
Idea 11) Go Live!
This one takes some building up to but going Live on your Instagram story is a great way to really chat with your followers and also show them who you are!
I recommend going live with a reason though- have something ready that you want to show or talk about! Going live without a purpose can leave followers confused and lead to dead air.
Idea 12) Themed days
Themed days are another Instagram story idea that give your followers something to look forward to on your stories.
Some ideas for this are:
Motivational Monday- share motivational quotes or stories
Wine Wednesday- chat with your followers while drinking a little wine
Favorites Friday- round up your favorite products from the past 7 days and chat about them
Idea 13) Behind the scenes
Sharing behind the scenes Instagram stories is very fun for your followers!
Share a photo shoot you worked on or even the process you go through to write a blog post! Behind the scenes are great ways to show your followers a lot more about what your blog/brand really is.
Idea 14) Host interviews
Hosting interviews can be a lot of work but they are totally worth it!
Getting someone who works for a brand you love or another content creator in your area to participate in an interview (in real life or virtual) is super unique for Instagram stories and something a lot of people love to watch.
Idea 15) Promote recent posts
The final of the Instagram story ideas for (for now) is to promote recent posts. Both your recent Instagram post but also any new blog posts or YouTube videos.
I recommend not just using the basic “new post” stickers but using a creative app like Canva to make your own new post announcement templates!
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