Well, there is no such thing as “the perfect Instagram story”

Everyone that is saying the contrary is probably trying to sell you something

So, what you could aim instead when you create your Instagram stories is to create an engaging story that fits your audience!

And this is something that it’s different from page to page (it will vary if you’re running a theme page, a personal brand page, and on your niche)

But don’t be discouraged!

There are some common rules along with all types of pages and if you follow the 4 rules that I’m going to explain to you, your Instagram engagement will skyrocket, you’ll be able to reach more people every day and make more sales

Over the years, I founded that, following these 4 simple rules is the only thing that you need to create awesome Instagram stories that your audience will love

But, why is it so important to have a great engagement in your stories?

Because, this is the only place, together with your Bio, where you can put your link!

If you are trying to sell something or to make people visit your website, you’ll be able to redirect your followers from your Instagram stories

But, what if only a few percentages of your audience sees your stories?

Well, this is a big problem, but today you’ll learn exactly how to solve it

(If you think that Instagram just show your stories and your posts to all of your followers as soon as you post something, I highly suggest you read this article)

But, what are these 4 rules?

Let’s find out

#1 rule, and probably the most important one, is to don’t overthink or over plan

Instagram stories are the most intuitive and organic traffic source of Instagram, and generally, they are the easiest thing to manage!

Many influencers don’t have a content strategy when it comes to the Instagram story: they just share their life, what they are doing, and stuff like that

Nothing special: people want to simply see what you are doing, what other people are doing during the day

If you are running a theme page, you also shouldn’t think too much about your Instagram stories: just use them to notify your audience when you post a new photo, do some polls and Q&A and try to interact as much as you can with your followers

(If you don't know what is a theme page and how you can make money on Instagram without showing your face, read this article)

Does it mean that you can post whatever you want?

No, of course

Even if you don’t need a strict content plan like with your feed post, you always must follow all 4 rules to make sure that your content is relevant and valuable for your audience

So, how to make sure that your followers will enjoy what you’re posting in your Instagram stories?

#2 rule: find the key takeaway

So, before you post something, always ask yourself: “which lesson my audience can learn from this story”

This is very important because people want to follow and interact with someone who can teach them something, even indirectly

They don’t want to watch only random videos, so if they learn something from you, from your life, from your experience, they will be more likely to follow and engage with you in the future

Regardless of what you wanna post, make sure that your story will provide real value to your audience and always ask yourself: “what my followers can learn from this?”

If you ask this question each time you post something, I can almost guarantee you that your engagement will improve drastically, and you’ll be able to convert more of your followers into customers!

The #3 rule is: add a call to action

If you provide real value to your audience, they will be interested in learning more from you, they will be motivated or maybe you’ve created a sense of urgency

Now, you’ve to direct this interest to your business

And how can you do it?

Using a call to action, so people know what to do now with the information that you provided!

What you can do is to drive this interest to your link in bio, or your last Instagram post, or invite people to DM you, so you can have direct contact with your audience, or maybe book a call with you, whatever it is

If you want to monetize your audience, this is the best thing you can do

It’s not enough to put your link in your Bio

You have to hook the interest of people by providing real value, and then drive traffic to your business, that could be your website, your feed post, your Youtube channel, etc...

The #4 rule is the relevance

Providing value and putting a call to action on your Instagram stories is fundamental, but you always have to make sure that what you’re providing for your audience is relevant to them!

I’ll give you an example

If you are a professional makeup artist, don’t just show tips for other professional makeup artists, because not everybody could be at your level

Instead, try to give also some tips for beginners who are just starting out

Teach them something basics but fundamental to maybe become good makeup artists in the future

If you provide value only for the 10% of professional artists that follow you, even if you provide real value and you give them a strong call to action, this won’t be relevant for the majority of your audience

So, in this particular case, you should try to mix advanced and beginners tips, trying to help all your followers and get out the most from your Instagram stories

And that’s it

As you see, these are basics and simple to follow rules, but I promise you that if you respect them for a while, your audience will appreciate it so much and you’ll be able to monetize your Instagram page very easily

To summarize:

• Don’t overthink, just do it

• Provide real value to your audience, but keep your stories natural and simple

• Add a call to action: people want to know what to do and this is the best way to drive traffic to your business

• Make sure that your content is relevant to your audience

Now that you know how to use Instagram stories to increase your engagement and make more money from your business, let’s take a look at some of the coolest trick that you can use on your stories

Most people think that you need to share a story to change your stories Highlight cover

That’s not true

There’s an easier way to do it and you don’t need to spam photos in your Instagram stories to change the Highlight cover

Here’s what you have to do

• Go to your profile

• Click on your Highlight story

• Click on the little icon at the top left

• Select “edit highlight”

• And then “Edit Cover”

• Click on the gallery icon and now you can choose the photo that you prefer

And you’re done

You don’t need anymore to post random story only to change your Story Highlight cover

Now, I’ll show you how to add a link to your Instagram story, even if you have less than 10’000 followers

Because, for those who didn’t know, to add a link to your Instagram story and have that cool swipe up feature, you must have at least 10 thousand followers

My #1 suggestion is to not abuse this method and try to reach this amount of followers as soon as possible, so it’ll be easier to add the swipe up to your story

And, if you think that achieving 10’000 followers is difficult or almost impossible for you, I highly suggest you read this article

It’s a full tutorial on “How to gain followers on Instagram”, all for free

It depends on your level, but with all the information's, the strategies and the suggestion that I provide in this blog, you could easily reach this benchmark in a few months, all for free, without spending in advertising

So, consider taking a look around this blog, and don’t worry, I’m not selling any Instagram course!

Now, first of all, let’s see how you can add a swipe up link if you have 10’000 followers or more

If you're at this point, it will be really easy for you to add a link to your story

• Just go on your feed section

• Click on your profile

• Here you can do a photo/video or upload a photo/video that you’ve already done to your story

• Then, tap the link sticker at the top and write the website URL you wanna add

And that’s pretty much it

Instead, if you don’t have already 10’000 followers, you have 2 opportunities

The first is to upload your story as I showed you before and then write something like “for more information, click the link in Bio”

If you less than 10 thousand followers, the only place you can put your link is in your Bio

To do so, it’s really easy: you only have to click on “edit profile” and where it says “website” add your URL

In that way, you are driving traffic from your Instagram stories to your link even if you don’t have the swipe up feature

But for those of you who want to add a clickable link in their Instagram stories, I’ll link to a video that explains everything you need to do step by step

This method is a little bit longer and difficult and it could be really hard to understand only by reading a blog post, so I think that watching this process on a Youtube video could be much easier

This is probably the best way to get clicks to your bio link on Instagram because if you attract people with an interesting and engaging story, people will be likely to swipe up or go to your profile and click the link in Bio

This is powerful, and by just capturing the interest of people, you can drive a lot of traffic to your business and make a lot more money/leads from your Instagram page

If you don’t know what to post in your stories at all, maybe look at what your competitors are doing, but remember: don’t just copy and paste, but try to replicate what they are doing in your way, following the 4 rules that I explained you before

I hope this full Instagram tutorial has been useful

You learned how to make engaging and interesting Instagram stories, to easily convert your followers into customers

Then you learned a lot of cool tricks that could help you create awesome Instagram stories, by adding music, photos from your smartphone, and the swipe up feature

Remember, the Instagram story is your point of contact with your audience, so use it wisely, because it could be your first tool to increase your sales on this platform

Try to understand what your audience like, dislike, what are their problems

Interact with them, even if you’re running a theme page (if you don’t know what a theme page is and how you can make money from it, check this article)

In this article, we covered:

• How to create the perfect Instagram story

• The 4 rules you have to follow when you post an IG story

• How to edit the cover photo of the Highlight cover

• How to add music to your Instagram story

• How to add a link to your story (even if you don’t have 10’000 followers)

• How to add multiple photos to your Story from your gallery

Now that you know everything you need, go out there and start creating your first Instagram story following the 4 rules that I explained to you, and if your first story is not perfect, don’t worry

It takes time, but after a while, you’ll be able to create awesome Instagram stories with less effort

I hope you enjoyed this article and have a great day

If you want to learn more about

How to gain followers fast on Instagram

Should you buy followers on Insta?

How to make money on Insta

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Thanks so much and have a great day!