Tips, Tricks and Tutorials

Instagram tutorial: Why you need to take IGstories seriously.

theguywiththebook

I think it’s been more than a year since Instagram introduced IGstories and over time we’ve all started to use it, and sometimes even abuse it.

People who are active on Snapchat tend to abuse the feature the most. Let’s face it, most people are not interested in 20 stories from one person when they are following more than 300 people. At least I’m not interested. I’ve even muted a few accounts’ stories because it got very annoying to see 20 stories every day.

At first I was posting 10 or even 15 stories everyday without really giving thought to what I’m posting. Oh, I’m having coffee, my followers need to see it! Oh, I’m stuck in a traffic jam, let me post it! Oh look, a cat! Post Post Post!

While the first story would get 4000 or even more views they would substantially decrease for the next stories ending up with maybe a 1000 on the final story posted that day.

This got me thinking (Yes, I think a lot about these things 😋) and I figured, I skip stories of people too! Especially when they have more than 5. I don’t have enough time to take each of them seriously so yeah, whatever, skip!

So what’s my solution?

1- Take every IGstory you post seriously. Realize that you are not the only person your followers are following. Quality over quantity.

2- Unless you have an important discussion on your post or a book review, do not do the ‘New post is up’ story. Doing it every time substantially decreases the value of your request.

3- Use your phone camera application to take pictures. The IG app camera is really bad and you can see the difference if you take a picture with both apps and compare them.

4- If possible, space your IGstories by a few hours. Every time you post an IGstory, it will show up near the start of your followers story timeline. So if you post back to back stories your story thumbnail will shoot up to the starting line just once. Ofcourse post together if the stories are related to each other (Like when you do unboxing videos and need 2-3 stories to show everything you got)

5- Use Hashtags and Location. These can get you more views if your story appears on them. Videos have a higher chance to be featured than photos.

6- Video montage. If you have an active and fun day ahead try mini Vlogging montages. On my trip to India earlier this year I made one 15 second video covering the full day every day. This is not something that I usually do but I figured if I can squeeze everything in one story without asking too much time of my followers they will return to watch the next one as well. You can make these on iMovie or similar apps on android. You will find these stories highlighted on my page. I’ve posted a video example below.

7- Shoutouts. Genuine shoutouts are really good. But if you go on a shoutout spree of 20 stories, it just seems like you’re trying to get brownie points and maybe a return shoutout from those you’ve shouted out. I personally don’t take these shoutouts seriously. All they do is annoy me.

8- Have fun with IG! Don’t take me too seriously. I’ve only shared what I feel works for me. And I’ve discussed a lot of this with other bookstagrammers including @sumaiyya.books and @africaanah who I trust a lot and have learnt from as well.

Exceptions- When traveling or attending an event you obviously might have a lot of stories to post. Try not to bombard with similar stories though, try to give a feel of the place without posting 5 stories of each location you visit. Unless it’s Agra and you’re at the Taj Mahal (Go crazy and post every angle of it you can find 😋)

I have another tutorial on how to start/improve your bookstagram which you can check here

I really enjoyed writing this post and really hope it helps you get a better idea about how to use IGstories to its full potential.

If it did, please consider subscribing to my blog here and if you’re on Instagram you can find me here

If you feel this will help your followers or friends, please consider sharing it with them as well 😊

Happy reading!

Faroukh

Published by theguywiththebook

I talk about the books i'm reading and ask about the books you're reading.

33 thoughts on “Instagram tutorial: Why you need to take IGstories seriously.”

  7. Hey there! I have been following your account for two months now, and let me just say how amazing it is. The way you engage people– be it with your posts or stories.
    I had a question though. A few days ago, I saw your IG story where you did the ‘tap the pic’ and it would lead to that post. I think you’ve included a story like that here too. May I know how you did that?

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  9. I honestly hadn’t thought about ig stories seriously before. Unfortunately, I’m one of those people who post ten stories each day (most of them are book giveaway shoutouts). And you’re so right, the number of views decreases from 100 to 60 😖 I need to start posting wisely. Thanks for this post, Faroukh. Helped a lot.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. Thanks for the tips. But I still have problem with IG stories. I don’t know what to update on stories because it’s just a normal life in office. Though I click photographs of some moments daily, but I really don’t know if people would like to see it.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Its the same for me, I don’t have anything going on as such. Sometimes I’ll post random videos of my office cats or maybe coffee. But overall, I try not to post random stuff unless it’s funny or maybe cute 😬

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

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