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Learn My 5 Step Instagram Story Formula for more sales online! You can use these tips for Facebook Stories and Instagram Stories!
What are Stories on Instagram?
Stories on Instagram are a feature that allows users to share photos and short videos that disappear after 24 hours. They appear at the top of the Instagram app’s feed and are represented by circular profile pictures. Stories offer a more casual and ephemeral way to share moments with your followers, without them appearing on your main profile grid or feed.
Here are some key features and aspects of Instagram Stories:
- Temporary Content: Stories are designed to be temporary, disappearing after 24 hours unless saved to a user’s highlights. This ephemeral nature encourages spontaneous and real-time sharing of moments, events, and updates.
- Multiple Media Formats: Users can share photos, videos, boomerangs (looping videos), text, stickers, emojis, polls, questions, quizzes, countdowns, music, and more in their Stories. This variety of media formats allows for creative expression and engagement with followers.
- Interactive Features: Instagram Stories include various interactive features, such as polls, questions, quizzes, and countdowns, that allow users to engage with their audience and gather feedback. These interactive elements can enhance user engagement and foster community interaction.
- Customization Options: Users can customize their Stories with a range of editing tools and features, including filters, stickers, text overlays, drawing tools, and more. These customization options enable users to personalize their Stories and express their creativity.
- Viewing Options: Instagram Stories can be viewed by tapping on a user’s profile picture at the top of the feed or by swiping left from the main feed. Users can also view Stories from accounts they follow in the Stories feed, which appears at the top of the app.
- Story Highlights: Users have the option to save their Stories to their profile as highlights, which appear below the bio section and remain visible indefinitely. Highlights allow users to showcase their favorite Stories and create curated collections around specific themes or topics.
- Privacy Settings: Users can control who can view their Stories by adjusting their privacy settings. Options include sharing Stories with everyone, only with followers, or with a select group of close friends using the Close Friends feature.
Overall, Instagram Stories provide users with a dynamic and interactive platform for sharing moments, engaging with followers, and expressing themselves creatively in a more casual and spontaneous manner.
5 Step Stories Formula
“You can either use stories to grow your business like crazy connect with your audience or you can just ignore it and miss out on an opportunity.”
Instagram and Facebook have jumped on the story feature and it is just been growing and growing and growing in popularity ever since. Honestly, a lot of people have been ignoring their Instagram feed since the story feature was created – Have you noticed that happening to you too?
Facebook has stories.
YouTube has stories, and even Pinterest has stories!
They are not going away.
How can we use them to connect with our audience to build engagement, and to increase conversions to increase sales?
If you’re in business, you are always thinking “how can I grow my business,” “how can I grow my income,” “how can I make more sales online.”
And now, “how can I use stories to grow my business.”
I’m going to give you a five story formula that you can start using today! You can use it every single day and customize it to whatever you’re doing.
If you’re pointing to a course, if you’re pointing to an affiliate link, if you’re pointing to your network marketing business… whatever it is, you can use this formula! It’s a plug and play kind of thing… and it’s something you can do every single day.
Stories are a way for you to bring people behind the scenes.
This is not some place where you have to be perfect all the time. You can have a lot of fun and test things out!
You can try an idea in a story first and see how your audience engages with it. If it performs well, you can turn the idea into an IGTV or YouTube video. Stories are a really good place that you can test you can see what your audience likes.
You can do engagement sort of post and really get to know your followers.
It’s a way for them to get to know you in a very real and authentic way and I believe that is why stories are so popular.
The Family Hustle · EP 61: My 5 Step Stories Formula
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Instagram Stories for Introverts
Now, if you’re an introvert like me and you don’t love showing up on live video every single day (because honestly, it uses a lot of energy to show up on live video) – Instagram Stories and Facebook stories is a great way to get started with video.
If you’re not used to showing your face every day, I would start with stories.
What I like to do is save these stories and create a video using an app like In Shot. You can repost that video in other places to save you time too!
Speak to your stories like you’re just talking to one person. Stories are also pre-recorded, so if you mess up – you just reshoot it. It’s a little less scary as live.
They say face to camera (showing your face) is the fastest way for people to fall in love with you to build that connection with your audience.
Your Audience is Watching Stories
People are consuming stories right now at a very high capacity so it’s where do you want to be.
When you’re starting your stories you need to think about “okay, what is the story I’m going to tell today.”
It can be easy to just jump directly to a product we want to share. But something I always have to remind myself is to first remember “what’s the story”…
What am I going to talk about? I want to talk about this product but let’s go back a couple steps before I get to the product.
Always, always, always think about what the product does because people don’t care what it is.
If they know what it does and they want those results then they will be interested in the product.
Story Example
I’ve been talking a lot about cleansing and detox and things like that. Well, what is the problem that somebody would have.
They want to cleanse and detox. They want a flat tummy. They want to feel more confident in their clothes… so I would start my story like this:
Hey Mama, are you feeling bloated right now? Maybe even sluggish and dealing with cravings? Here are three tips that helped me get back on track, after a splurge after a vacation.
And then I would share the three tips. And so that would be my Hook.
The very first part of your story is to state the problem.
I’ve heard it said it’s the hook. You need to state the problem. You need to ask a question. You need to identify who you’re talking to.
My audience is moms… so I always say “Hey Mama” because Hey Mama, is my avatar – I’m talking to mom who wants to live a healthier life.
So my question is either: Have you ever felt like this? or are you feeling this right now? or is this something you struggle with?
“If you can relate to that then Hang on, because I’m going to be sharing my three tips to help me get back on track”
Add Text to your Stories
Always always always add text to your stories, because most people don’t listen to stories with the sound on.
You can make a big deal during your first story and use a “sound on” sticker or motion to your ear for them to listen.
But you need to always put text on your stories, because people don’t listen to stories unless you make a big deal about that they need to listen to it.
Share the Hook
First you need to have a hook. You need to catch their attention with the question. Then the people who are going to tune into this story are people who are dealing with that problem AKA: bloat. They’re feeling sluggish and they’re dealing with cravings and they’re like okay well let me hear these tips.
The next thing, this is attraction marketing, is you share three tips. You list out your tips that would help this person if they buy from you or not. These are tips that don’t include your products.
If I’m going back to the bloating example… the very first thing I would say if I was dealing with bloat is make sure that you’re drinking enough water. That’s so important to make sure that your systems are healthy and that you’re able to flush out all the toxins and everything so make sure you’re hydrated.
Then I would show my water bottle and say “this is what I use to make sure I drink a gallon of water every day” I add fresh mint to it from my garden, and a little squeeze of lemon and it just tastes great. You’re gonna love it!
The second thing is healthy fats. If I’m eating keto, that really helps my body get rid of some of the extra bloat. I focus on extra water and extra fats and those two things kills my cravings. It keeps me full and it also helps with bloat – so that’s my second tip and I might even say – and if you want some recipes shoot me a message and I’ll hook you up with my favorite recipes.
So the third thing is… I know sometimes I need something that can really help me get back on track. Sometimes that’s natural, something that my body gets to get the benefits of and it really helps me. It’s only two days it’s an herbal drink you’re gonna love it. It tastes like a spicy Margarita, and. And here are some testimonies of people who have tried it.
Demo the Product
I’ve already shared value, one, two, and then the third is a product.
Whenever I’m doing the testimonies, I’m also going to maybe do a product demo if that’s appropriate. I’ll show the bottle. I’ll pour it into a glass. If you can demo your product to show them how to use it, they’re going to be more inclined to buy it. They can see themselves using it.
That’s the whole point of QVC! You can see the products, you can see them being used, and you’re just like, oh my gosh I need this.
So, open your own QVC on your smart phone, on your Instagram app and start demoing your products.
Testimonials
Now you show the testimonials. Testimonials is a way to build your social proof – so it’s not just you talking about it. You can say here are what some of my customers shared with me and what they say.
So then you could do like three testimonials from different people and they’re saying: “I love using this!” “It tastes so good!” “It helped me get back on my skinny jeans right before we went on vacation.”
Share these three testimonials and then you can finish with a poll.
“Are you ready to try this cleanse for yourself?” And then you can have a poll. That gives anybody a chance to vote and interact with your poll. Then, you can follow up with the people:
“Hey! I saw this you voted in my poll about my cleanse! Is that something you’d be open to trying?” And so it’s a way for you to start conversations, specifically about what you were talking about.
A lot of times people don’t vote in polls and they are interested. You can see on stories who views your stories. This is a really good chance to reach out to those people. If you want to go an indirect way you could say”
Hey! Thanks so much for checking out my stories! Do you know anyone who’d be interested in doing a two day cleanse?
My 5 Step Stories Formula
That is the step by step behind the scenes of how I would do an Instagram story or Facebook story, and all the different parts of the puzzle.
It’s really important to have your problem, “your hook”, your question at the beginning. Then, share your story and share your tips. Why do you use this. Do a product demo. This is what it is and this is what it does.
Next, share those testimonials to build that social proof which is so important. At the end, have a poll so that they can have a call to action and so you can reach out to and start the conversation.
Most of the time sales happen in the DM – they happen in messenger. They don’t happen on your actual post. So use your stories as a way to connect and start conversations too!
I hope that these tips helped you about how you can use stories, Instagram, Facebook and how you can use stories to start conversations to build your business authentically online.
More Resources
How to Increase Your Confidence with Daily Affirmations
5 Words to Help You Start a New Habit
How to Share your beliefs as a Faith Driven Entrepreneur
How to Stay Motivated when Life Gets Tough
Free Printable Wellness Journal
How to Grow Your Business as an Introvert
Can Introverts Be Successful in Network Marketing?
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I'm on a mission to make healthy living feel like a breeze – because who's got time for complicated recipes?
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