9 tips for getting more views on Instagram stories

Need help increasing your views and engagement on Instagram stories?

In the last five months I have increased my views on Instagram stories by 300%.

This is not because my number of followers increased by 300%, or even close to that. It’s because I changed tactics and started creating stories people actually want to view every day.

Why do story views matter? Well, if you’re a blogger, stories are a great place to promote your content.

Even if you do not have the magical 10,000 followers needed for the swipe up feature to link your posts, you can still direct people to a new blog post or YouTube video by flagging it up in your stories.

Stories are also somewhere you can promote products, which is what makes stories appealing to brands who you may want to work with on sponsored content. Or you could use stories to promote your own products.

Whatever your reason, Instagram stories are a great way to connect and speak directly to your audience or customers every single day.

Instagram stories definitely takes commitment.

Ideally you will create five to 15 new Instagram stories per day. Some bloggers upload dozens.

Instagram allows you to upload a maximum of 100 Instagram stories in a 24-hour period.

I’m going to share with you tips to use every day to create Instagram stories that increase your views.

These tips will also help you to create content that people want to share, which ultimately will lead to your follower number increasing.

Before we get to the tips, and before you get serious about improving your IG stories views, you need to have a think about what your Instagram account is offering. Think about the following:

What is your brand?
Who is your audience or who do you want your audience to be?
What does your audience need help with?
How can you help them?
What kind of content would interest or entertain your audience?

These questions should help you start to think about what type of IG content you need to zero in on. A little bit of everything from your life isn’t necessarily going to result in a ton of views, you need to think about how your stories may inspire or help others.

And just one more thing before we get started. One good way to think about IG stories is that if you consider your Instagram grid to be a place to showcase your brand, then IG stories is kind of like the behind the scenes.

If you want to know more about increasing your followers on Instagram you can check out this post.

Now on to the tips!

Go live

Sounds scary? Yep the first one can be. But going live is a great way to boost your account in front of more people.

Before going live it’s a good idea to sit down and plan out your live. Consider the following:

What topic do you want to speak about – consider what will be interesting, helpful and engaging for your audience.

What are you going to say – set out in bullet points they key things you want to cover.

Think about where you will film the live – it needs to be somewhere you won’t be disturbed and with good wifi.

Practice the rough version of what you want to say a few times (do it in the shower!) before you actually go live

Add hashtags and location

One incredibly simple way of getting your Instagram stories in front of new accounts who are not already following you is to use hashtags and location for where you are shooting your stories.

Try to research your hashtags before you go out and choose ones that are active, but don’t have too many people using them.

They need to be active so that people will actually stumble upon your Instagram account via that hashtag. But if they’re too big, you will be lost amid the noise.

Look for hashtags with more than 1,000 posts but fewer than one million.

When adding the location, try to vary this depending on where you are. If you are posting pictures from a day out, after you have returned home, before sure to tag the location where the pictures were taken.

Post consistently

There’s no quick and easy ride to the top with Instagram. Or with any other part of business and blogging.

You need to show up every day in order to nurture and grow your following.

Once you are in a rhythm of creating your IG stories, you will find it becomes easier and less time-consuming to create the content.

I recommend posting at least three IG stories daily. Ideally you will post around five to 10 per day.

Remember that an IG story could be as simple as sharing your latest Instagram grid post.

Make your content appealing

When creating your IG stories, put a little thought into it. Your IG stories don’t have to be picture perfection but you should try to make them some or all of the following:

Funny
Informative
Thought-provoking
Emotive
Interesting
Helpful
Beautiful
Inspiring

You can use apps such as Unfold to make your stories pretty or to create collages with multiple pictures. It has some stunning templates you can add your photos to which are only a few quid to unlock.

The Unfold app has some beautiful templates for creating IG stories.

You can also edit your photos for IG stories in an app such as Lightroom. You can brighten the pictures or try adding a preset.

A preset is custom filter (adjusting things like brightness, exposure and colours) that you can apply to your pictures in editing apps such as Lightroom. It can really improve the quality of your images.

Add text to your photos to make a comment or share extra information.

You can always just use one of the blank backgrounds in the create option of IG stories and overlay text on that. This takes the pressure off as you don’t have to have an original picture or video to produce an IG story!

It can help to have some simple images in your phone that you can use as backdrops for your IG stories when you want to share a little quote or tidbit from your day. Some bloggers use things like images of flowers or pretty views they have seen.

Try to create a stockpile of them and then save them in a folder on your phone so that you have easy access.

Create varied content

Try to mix up the type of content you create for your stories. Of course it will all be based around your brand, voice and the type of things your audience are interested in.

But stories are a great chance to be creative.

There are lots of different types of stories you can create including:

Video – Shoot videos of places you have been or of you demonstrating a technique (for example like Mrs Hinch in her cleaning stories).
Speaking to the camera – Show your face every now and then. Have a chat about what you’re up to or your thoughts on something your audience will be interested in.
Boomerang – A short but fun little story that can tell a story about what you’ve been up to. Classic boomerangs include filming your feet on the move.
Text only – If you have something to share but you don’t fancy speaking to camera, you can just type a few words onto a plain backdrop in the IG stories create option.
Pictures
Gifs and memes

Use stickers for engagement

Bring your stories to life and encourage your audience to have a conversation with you using stickers.

You could try adding a poll, the question function or give them a quiz. Be creative and try to make it fun.

You can find all the stickers under the little square face option. Simply tap it once you’re ready.

Next you just choose from the options.

Tag and share other users

If you tag other users in your stories then they will be able to share your stories to their own IG stories.

Use this sparingly and appropriately, because you don’t want to spam people!

An example where I may tag someone in my IG stories is if I have a photo of myself and another blogger that I am sharing. I may also tag someone I know if I am discussing something where I mention them.

You can also share other people’s posts or give them a shoutout in your stories. They will often give you a shoutout back to say thanks for the mention and this then exposes your account to their audience too.

Take inspiration from others

If you are struggling with what to do with your IG stories, look at other people in your niche.

What kind of stories are they making and what are they talking about in their IG stories.

You don’t want to copy exactly what other people are doing, but take inspiration from what type of stories they create.

Revisit and revise

When you embark on a new strategy, it’s going to take a little time for it to start working.

You need to give your push for more IG stories views a few weeks to work.

If you are getting no response, then revisit your strategy and try something new with your content.

As a blogger we always need to be willing to try something a little different. With ever changing algorithms and practices, it’s important to be flexible.