If you want to attract more customers on Instagram through highlights for your business, this article is for you.
Instagram is one of the best social networks for businesses and organizations because in it you can create a closer relationship with your audience and customers. This communication and conflict can be through publishing photos, videos, live or IGTV, and stories. But among these, there is one of the features of Instagram that, despite its power to attract an audience, is sometimes ignored and the necessary efforts are not made about it. This feature is called Highlight Story.
In this article, we want to specifically address the role of the highlight story in attracting customers and review 9 strategies with which you can create a better highlight to attract customers.
Table of Contents
What is an Instagram highlight story?
Highlights of Instagram stories are a collection of photos, videos, and stories that you have already published and are categories that can each have a different topic. As you know, the life of each story on Instagram is only 24 hours, and if you want to keep it on your page, you must make a highlight from it, and this highlight can stay on your page forever. Of course, you can delete these highlights from your screen whenever you want. Highlight stories are placed under the Instagram bio and above your feed page.
How to make highlights on Instagram
Before anything, we have to see how the highlight story of Instagram is made. The first step to saving stories is to enable the automatic story-saving feature. By activating this feature, every story you publish will be automatically saved and only you can see the saved stories. In this case, you can rest assured that none of your stories will be deleted and will be saved on your Instagram and you can highlight it whenever you want.
To save stories automatically, you must do the following steps:
- Go to Settings on your Instagram page.
- Click on the Story option.
- In this section, the Save to Archive option should be active and blue.
When you are sure that this option is active, we will create the highlight in the next step. To create a highlight, you need to go to your Instagram page and click on the Story Highlights button, which is located just below the Follow button. Next, choose an image for the highlight cover and a title for the desired highlight, and then select Add or Done to create your highlight.
Using Instagram highlights to attract more customers
You can put all the stories you’ve ever published in one highlight, but that’s not interesting at all and doesn’t create any special interest. On the other hand, because it is not divided into separate and targeted categories, it does not attract the audience and engage them with the stories. To attract and engage the audience or customer more, it is better to have regular highlights with targeted titles to guide the customer part by part and clear his doubts. But what topics should our highlights category include?
In the following, we will tell you 9 strategies for creating an attractive highlight story:
1- Create a product introduction highlight
One of the things that may confuse the user on a business page is the lack of clear products or services and ambiguity in it. According to research, 75% of website users take action after seeing product ads on different platforms (now this action can be buying or just seeing the product). It is the same on Instagram. Suppose you have a food preparation page, when a user enters your page, the first thing they look for is your products, that is, your food menu.
Naturally, when the user enters the page, these are the highlights that stand out, and the user is more likely to go to the highlight than to scroll and find products through many posts! Therefore, less time is taken from the user and he is more likely to engage with your page because, in the shortest possible time, you have put what he wanted in front of his eyes and resolved his ambiguity.
In addition, you can tag products in stores and encourage customers to buy with various interactive stickers. For example, on the Academy page, each of the services and events are categorized separately so that the user can quickly find the desired service and related information.
Depending on your business, you can create a separate highlight for each product or service you have, for example, categorize based on seasonal products, latest products, discounted products, etc. It is better to place a call-to-action button in the highlights of each product. This button can be a See more link that directs the user to the product purchase page.
2- Create highlights for brand events
As we said, social networks are the best place to create brand awareness and also create trust in the audience. In a network like Instagram, you have to show your organizational culture to create a closer feeling in the customer. Although it is forbidden to gather and get together during these coronavirus days, in general, if you held an event before, make sure to consider a separate highlight for it. The event can be an opening, celebration, new product launch, or… This will make the customer familiar with your events and possibly plan to attend your next event.
If you even have events such as short-term workshops or training programs (it can be virtual), dedicate a separate highlight to it.
3- Make a highlight of the process of doing the work
One of the issues that increases the customer’s trust is to know about the behind-the-scenes. Highlight the way the product is made, the way the service is provided, the organizational environment and the people working, and let the customer get to know you closely and create a feeling of trust and empathy.
This will make your brand go from robotic to more human. It makes the customer get to know the people involved in the production of the product or service and doubles his trust. For example, if you have a clothing page, you can take pictures and videos of how to pack and send them to different parts of the country so that the customer buys from you with more confidence.
Some ideas with which you can make better highlights in this field:
- Make a video of the product manufacturing process.
- Publish photos of your company’s meetings or events.
- Publish photos of employees’ workplaces in the company or interview them.
4- Use interactive stickers
Using interactive stickers is one of the ways to create a close relationship with the audience. Interactive stickers in the story include question-and-answer stickers, polls, etc. Using these stickers will help you get to know your customers better and identify their challenges. Ask them different questions, even add humor to your work, and ask funny and relevant questions. Let the audience feel that a real person is sitting behind this screen and can share their feelings with them.
In addition, the results you get from interactive stories can help you in your marketing plans and advertising campaigns to be more effective. If you highlight these surveys, the next customers who enter your page will realize that you listen to the opinions and suggestions of the contacts and value the customers’ opinions.
5- Make a question and answer highlight
Another common and incidentally very important method that can attract the attention of the audience in the first place is the question-and-answer highlight. Create a highlight where common customer questions are answered.
In 2018, Instagram introduced a sticker that can be used to do questions and answers and contacts can ask a question in the box and you can answer it and publish it to others. Of course, when the story is published, the name and profile of the respondent will not be displayed to others and only you can see it. In this case, you can ask the audience a question and answer their doubts, or on the contrary, you can ask a question yourself and the audience will write your answer in the corresponding box.
You can start this Q&A with common audience questions. Questions such as your working hours, your service location, how to send products, or… For this, it is important to put yourself in the audience’s place and see what questions they may ask you. For example, the question of a restaurant can be: “What food would you like to have on the restaurant menu?” Or the question of a real estate agency can be: “How important is the proximity of the property to public transportation?”.
However, you should try to clear all the customer’s doubts about the product and service. This will take less time from you and the audience will find the answers to their questions from the Q&A highlights like a brochure.
6- Make a highlight of how to use the product
Creating an album that shows the audience how to use your product or service can have a profound effect on the audience’s trust and purchase decision. Create a highlight that shows real customers using the product, seeing how the product works in practice and the real world is more likely to encourage them to buy.
For example, if you have a page selling watches, you can ask your previous customers to send you a photo with your product in their hands. Or if you have a product that needs training, make sure to make a training out of it and highlight it. For businesses that have a high product price or are less well-known, the attention-grabbing stage may take longer. Therefore, if you are at this stage, try to somehow show the customer what he will get by buying the product.
7- Make highlights from the comments of previous customers
We all know the importance of positive feedback from previous customers. Probably many times when you want to buy from a website, the first thing you do is go to the comments section of customers who have bought the product.
Make a highlight and put in it a collection of positive comments from your previous customers. Take screenshots of their satisfying messages and highlight them. Even if the previous customers don’t comment themselves, ask them about the results of your work. Do not forget that this will have a very positive effect on the decision of the next buyers.
Be sure that these positive comments increase the rate of opening the link (See More) and in the same way, the next customers are more likely to buy from you. But don’t forget to get permission from your client before you publish the comments. However, if you have satisfied him enough, be sure that he will not say no to you.
8- Make a highlight from discount products
One of the most effective ways to increase sales on Instagram and engage more followers with your content is to give gifts and product discounts.
It is better to make a highlight for discounts and only put the current discounts in it and keep it in the highlight for as long as the discount is valid and delete it from the highlight when the discount period is over so as not to confuse the customer. Highlight of the title of the discount at first glance and when the audience enters the page can encourage them to buy.
9- Get away from the formal atmosphere
So far, we have introduced different methods to make all kinds of essential highlights. For example, a product introduction highlight, a separate highlight for product discounts, a separate highlight for business events, etc.
But in this part, we want to move away from the business environment and use more creative methods. These creative methods can be a funny story, motivational content, and in general any content that can touch the emotions of the audience well and communicate with them. This content can even be about your organization’s social responsibility, your organizational culture, or your mission. It is enough to communicate with the audience and take you out of the dry and formal mode.
You can create a separate highlight for this series of stories. For example, if you story motivational sentences, your highlight title can be motivational, if you story funny videos, your highlight title can be fun. With a little creativity, you can establish a more emotional connection with the customer.
But be careful not to overdo it, because as a business, your job is not to publish funny videos and you are using this tactic to season the work, and the season should be little but continuous. In this case, every new visitor who enters your page can feel that he is not dealing with a dry and official business and that he is going to have fun on this page.