You May be Overlooking 'Stories' and How to Include Them in your Strategy

Welcome back to Social Sessions! This week we are talking about 'stories,' specifically Instagram and Tiktok stories. In this episode you can expect to hear about; 

• How stories can benefit your social media strategy
• Best practices for Tiktok and Instagram stories
• The newest social media updates

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Chapters

• 0:00 Exploring Digital Marketing Strategies and Updates
• 7:19 Benefits of Social Media Story Strategies
• 16:01 Maximizing Impact With Social Media Stories

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Have you ever wondered what goes into your favorite brand's digital marketing strategy? I'm Tara, the founder of TJ Creative Agency, and I'm Audrey, the creative marketing director of TJ Creative Agency. Whether you're an influencer, a business owner, a content creator or just an overall creative person, we'll teach you how to create the perfect social media strategy and build your brand online. Hi guys, welcome back to Social Sessions. It is just me, audrey, here with you guys today. Hope that's okay. We are talking about something a little bit niche, a little bit specific. We are talking about stories. Today we're going to talk about Instagram stories and TikTok stories. So, like I said, little tiny bit niche, um, but I think it's an important feature that a lot of people, especially businesses, overlook. I think it's a lot more normalized and used a lot with influencers and personal accounts, but within businesses, I think it is severely underutilized, which we will get into. But before we jump into that, I always have updates for you guys. I actually have three little updates this week that I actually all of them I find pretty interesting. So first one is YouTube is launching an AI disclosure requirement, which I think is pretty exciting. I think we've talked about this on the podcast before, so it's hard sometimes, like you can't always tell what's AI and what's not. Sure, there's definitely situations where you're like, oh, that's obvious, but there's some situations where it is getting harder and harder to tell what's real and what's not, because the technology is getting so much better, the AI is getting so much better and this is a sidebar, but kind of on this topic. Have you guys heard about that Willy Wonka situation that was supposed to be? I think it was like in Scotland or in the UK or something, but they advertised with all AI images. So these parents it was supposed to be this Willy Wonka experience these parents were thinking they were getting one thing I'm sure you guys saw it because it went extremely viral on social media, but literally the police were called like it was this whole ordeal. You guys saw it because it went extremely viral on social media but literally the police were called like it was this whole ordeal, anyways. So obviously, like there does need to be some sort of requirement when it comes to AI. So I thought this was interesting.

Speaker 1: 2:17

Essentially, they're adding like a box kind of like. If you've ever posted to YouTube, you know the box that's like is this made for children? A yes or no box, very similar to that in the creator studio, and it just says do any of the following describe your content. It says makes a real person appear to say or do something they didn't say or do, alters footage of a real event or place or generates a realistic looking scene that doesn't actually occur and you have to hit yes or no and then from there there's a little tag, like once the video goes live, there's a little tag on the video that says AI, like altered or like altered content. I don't remember exactly what it says, but so now there is, you know, some sort of disclosure if something is, you know, ai generated, which I think is great. I'm not, I can't confidently say this is the first company to do this, but it's definitely one of the first. I haven't heard a ton about other companies doing this, other social media companies doing this. So that's why I wanted to let you guys know, because I actually think that is that feels like a step in the right direction. I think eventually, all of these social companies are going to have something like that. Um, just like I said, because there's so much discourse, because there is some confusion, especially, I think it happens the most on Tik TOK, like with video content, is where people are getting very confused. So good for YouTube.

Speaker 1: 3:50

Moving on this one is like a very, very subtle change, but still kind of an exciting change, and it has to do with Instagram hashtags. So basically, when you would click on a hashtag before, or you would search a hashtag before, it would pull up like top results or top posts. Right, that's what that page would look like, and they're changing it a little bit, where now, if you click on a hashtag, it's going to show you almost more like, it's going to display more like an explore page where just kind of anyone with these hashtags, anyone that's using these hashtags, um, will show up on that page. And I think it's a little bit, if I'm understanding correctly, I think it's a little bit more tailored to you. I think that's what they mean by it being a little bit more like the explore page. It's going to be a little bit more tailored to you, and the goal Instagram says the goal is to give other accounts more exposure and be able to, you know, find new creators in a more organic way. Because, as you guys know, when you would click on that type of stuff, or sometimes if you would search a certain word, you might be getting a post from three years ago because it has the most amount of likes or the most engagement or something like that, so it might be a little bit outdated. So I think this is a good way that they've been able to kind of combat that, and I do like that they are actively trying to make ways for other people to be seen, to be found, so that is that feels like an again step in the right direction. It feels like a good decision on their part, super, super like. I actually don't know, if you haven't heard this, you might not even recognize the change in your search results, but I also think it's an indicator that they still pay attention a little bit to hashtags. I think it's changed a little bit Obviously since the beginning. We've talked about this before. I think hashtags used to play a way bigger part in if you were able to be found and things like that, and I don't think they're nearly as important as they used to be, but I think the fact that they're still putting work into them and into the search results and things like that is proof that you know they are still something to be considered.

Speaker 1: 5:58

Last one is the Instagram launches ads with promo codes to entice purchase activity. So basically, what this is is that if you're running an ad, you can put in the caption like a promo code and if someone buys it through Instagram, you can enter that promo code. So I'm thinking of it. So when I first read this, I had thought, oh, they must be trying to take something out of the book of TikTok shop, right? Because if you guys have been on TikTok shop, everything is discounted all the time.

Speaker 1: 6:29

It seems like which I think is a huge way that they've started getting people to purchase on there in the first place. That, and they're obviously pushing out anyone that's making content about TikTok shop. If you are linking to a product, your video is probably going to be seen more. I'm sure you guys have seen that. Like, I've seen a lot of complaints about it. I've just seen a lot of conversation about it, about Tik TOK really, really pushing Tik TOK shop. But I think, again, one of the biggest ways that they've been able to get people to actually activate and actually purchase from Tik TOK shop is through the discounts. So that's what I originally thought when I saw this Instagram situation, but it seems like they've been talking about, like they've been experimenting with promo codes and ads for a really long time. It just hasn't necessarily been brought over to Instagram.

Speaker 1: 7:19

Meta has been experimenting with discount codes, um, but I think that'll be interesting and hopefully help businesses. You know, if you because I think this isn't any like new technology or new strategy to promote an ad it's the same reason that companies, like you know we'll have these big commercials and they'll say you know, this weekend, this president's day weekend, like 50% off, blah, blah, blah. It's the reason that, like a lot, a lot of these companies will put out these whatever, and they always give a percentage off, because that is the incentive to get them to buy for the first time. So, yeah, again think it's a great. All of all of these updates I actually think are pretty good updates and very beneficial for creators and businesses. I think it's it's going to be helpful for both sides of things, um, but yeah, I think the fact that now you can use these promo codes and you can, you know, have these ads with promo codes, it might be helpful in actually converting, because obviously ads always do a pretty good job at being that top of the funnel, like brand awareness. But I think my guess is, their intention here is to help brands get more conversions. So we'll see if it. We'll see if it actually helps. I mean, time will tell, but overall I'm thinking that all of these are good ideas, but would love to hear what you guys think.

Speaker 1: 8:46

Now we're moving into story strategies. Now I wanted to talk about this because I just had a one-on-one call the other day, which, by the way, I wanted to let you guys know. We are giving away social media audits. So that's actually the call that I'm referencing. We're giving away free social media audits. I will link the link down below. But if you sign up to our email list, which again will be down below, you're entered for a chance to win a free social media audit. And it's not just a one winner situation. As long as people keep signing up, we're going to keep pulling winners.

Speaker 1: 9:18

So, if that sounds like you, if you want a free social media audit with me, it's a one hour conversation where we basically go over what's working for you, what's not. We kind of build out a strategy, things like that. Um, if that's something that sounds interesting to you, definitely put your email in. It's very simple. We also. We only send out one email a week. It's not like we're spamming you. It's one email a week with tips on how to achieve social media success, so it's actually quite beneficial.

Speaker 1: 9:47

Anyways, had this conversation and we had talked about stories and I was like, oh well, I see you don't have any up right now. I recommend most businesses to almost always have stories up because, if you think about it, especially with a new person, with a new client or a new customer, new eyes on your social profile I'm talking Instagram specific right now, but most of the time if someone finds you, they just find you. They see a piece of content. They go to your profile. They're going to probably check your bio first, then the overall grid, maybe the pin posts, and then they're probably going to check stories. Like, think about yourself, if you find a business or a person, stories are usually one of the first things that I'm checking. Right, and also I'm way more as a user. I'm way more active on stories than I am on the grid. So honestly, it seems like there's probably a higher chance of me seeing your stories than your grid post. So obviously that's all reason enough to to have things going up on your stories, but also there's obviously all of that is reason enough to to utilize stories on Instagram.

Speaker 1: 11:02

There's other benefits too. Right, it can increase your engagement. So if you have low engagement, it's a. It's a really easy way to do it by utilizing, you know, like polls, question boxes, things like that Like the features that Instagram offers can be a really, really great way to increase your engagement. It can also be a really great way to start conversation with your clients, because I think people are a lot more open to DMing off of a story than just cold DMing, if that makes sense, like if they have a question about a product or a service or how much something is going to cost, they're more likely to do it based off of a story than they are just to straight DM you. So I think there's just something about people feel a little bit more comfortable sending you a DM from a story, like in reference to something, than just sending you a DM out of the blue when they've never talked to you before.

Speaker 1: 11:56

Okay, it can also help drive traffic, and what I mean by that is like when you use the links, if you add links and you actually sell In your stories, it can help to drive traffic because, again, think about yourself I'm a lot more likely to click on a link and see what's going on through stories Than going to someone's profile and clicking a link. In fact, I almost never click the link in the bio. It's too much work, right? We've talked about that before because then I have to go to your profile. Odds are you have some sort of a link tree. Then I have to look through all of the options on the link tree, figure out which one I actually want to look at. I'm most likely going to just look at the link in the stories, right, if I'm going to click on a link, for you it's probably going to be in the stories.

Speaker 1: 12:43

I also think it is a great way to humanize your brand because you can do like a day in the life, you can show behind the scenes. It does kind of give them kind of insight into the brand or the company or what that looks like, because and yes, you can do that on your grid you can do a lot of this stuff on your grid. I think stories are just an extension of that, but you also don't have to be so polished, so I think that's what really gives. The human element is that you don't have to be so polished like. Even if you do a day in the life on the grid, like in reels or something like that, it's still pretty edited, it's know, using this trending sound and you use the clips that look good, and it's less like that on stories. So it really does feel more like a relationship and a little bit more like you know they get to know you.

Speaker 1: 13:33

I also think you can add things that don't have to do with your business, which sounds kind of crazy. But, for example, when we do day in the life like I teach spin classes on the side and you might see that on the day in the life in the stories, but you're probably not going to see that on the grid because it doesn't really make much sense for me to put it on the grid. Or same with Heather, another girl that works for us teaches Pilates classes You're going to see that on the stories, but you're really not going to see that at all on the grid. That's just like kind of how it works. And lastly, I think there's the benefit of understanding your audience, which is really similar to to the DM conversation, but they are more likely to interact with you, right, and even it all kind of ties together too. But the engagement of it, all those polls, yes, they can help your engagement, but I think, more importantly, they help you understand your audience. So I just think stories are a really great way to open up conversation.

Speaker 1: 14:32

What does your audience want to see?

Speaker 1: 14:33

What are they most interested in? Um, what, like, maybe what's holding them back from buying from you or booking with you, or something like that? When you're able to open up that conversation, you're able to solve those problems that your clients have, right, but you don't, maybe don't know the problems that your clients have until they start voicing them, right? So, for example, it might be the price, right. Like, maybe the issue is, oh, your service is too expensive, or I have to, you know, come in more often, or whatever, and that might incentivize you as the business owner to run sort of some sort of promotion, right, maybe you're going to run like 15% off your first time booking with me, or maybe, for a limited time, you're going to run a $500 off our service for, like, your first month, whatever it is, and maybe that will be enough incentive for these people. Or maybe their issue is they just have some questions. They're not quite clear on the product or the service, like do they need to book? Let's say you're a service, how often do they need to book with you? That might be a determining factor of whether they book with you for that very first time. Things like that, like you'll get to know their concerns and their questions and kind of what's holding them back so that you can make changes in your strategy and in your selling.

Speaker 1: 16:01

So I just I think we overlook how important it is to have that communication with our clients, with our customers, because really, at the end of the day, how they feel about your product or service is what's going to keep you in business. I also think now, circling back kind of on the conversions, when it comes to stories, this might sound kind of controversial, but I do think in your stories you need to be selling every day, you need to be advocating for your product or service every day, because again, that's where you're probably going to get more link clicks, you're probably going to get more traffic to your website and you're going to those new eyes are going to be on your stories, right, and when I'm telling you to sell, I don't mean it doesn't have to be this big production. It could literally be. I'll use us as an example. With these audits, I could hop on stories during a day in my life and say just got off of this great call with a client. These are some things that we went over. If you wanna book with us, here's your link to book. It's also quite helpful If you offer multiple services.

Speaker 1: 17:03

You can kind of highlight each service or multiple products. You can kind of highlight each product or service on a different day. It doesn't necessarily have to be like this is what we sell. Here's a link it can be. This is an experience I just had with a client or just got off the phone or saw this testimonial means so much. You can book here. This is the type of service that you want. You can book here whatever Like.

Speaker 1: 17:26

There's different ways to do it, but I think that's the beauty of stories is that it can be a lot more laid back and it does feel a lot more conversational in the ways that you're selling. I also think when I tell people they need to be selling on stories almost every day and they need to be on stories every day, they get nervous because that is a lot of content. Again, stories do not have to be extremely produced. It can be you talking to your phone, it can be pictures throughout the day. Whatever you want it to be, it really doesn't have to be anything crazy. But also you can reuse stories that you've already done. I do this a lot on the TJ page. I have a few story sets that explain what we do, or maybe polls, like I have one story set that is very much like which one matches you, which persona matches you, and it's a quiz. And then you the next few slides are what each of the personas attached to. So, for example, one is like the savvy shopper and it's like oh, then you would love this service of ours, you would love the pick two bundle, because you can get two of our services for the lowest price. We offer things like that that I can reuse multiple times. You can reuse those types of stories, the produced types of stories. Now, that was all pretty Instagram specific.

Speaker 1: 18:52

Moving on to TikTok, it is pretty similar in the sense of that behind the scenes content is really great, it's great to humanize the brand A lot of that same stuff. I think there is something to be said about TikTok, too, where I can't like confirm this fact. I can't like back this with a lot of fact or anything like that, but there is a lot of conversation. There are a lot of people talking about how, when you're using stories, your content tends to be pushed out a little bit more, which we've heard before. If you're using certain features on certain apps, they might favor you a bit. So that's something to keep in mind with TikTok. I also think if you're already posting on Instagram stories, you could probably carry a lot of that over to TikTok stories. There can be a lot of overlap between those two, but same kind of thing doesn't need to be reinventing the wheel.

Speaker 1: 19:47

The beauty of TikTok stories, especially as they're like five second clips. So, especially if you are a front facing founder and you're already getting on camera, why not just do it on TikTok? This could also be a great place to do those trends that you think maybe aren't as fitting for your brand and you don't necessarily want to have a permanent place on your grid. You can do those. Put them on stories. I just did one of those for my personal brand today that I'm like I don't want this up here forever, but it's fun. I was curious about it. I'm going to put it up. There doesn't need to be a ton of thought.

Speaker 1: 20:22

But I do think another great thing with with stories, especially TikTok stories, is your TikTok stories are really only going to reach those followers that that do care about you, right? It's a little bit different than Instagram because, like I said, if you get a new, like a set of new eyes on your Instagram profile, they're probably going to look at your story. So your stories, yes, it's mostly for the people that follow you, but it's not surprising if you get a lot of new eyes on your stories too. On Instagram, tiktok is less like that. I think you're really only going to get the eyes that already follow you, right? So that could be a great way. Tiktok stories can be a great way to reward those followers, like thanks so much for following us. Here's 15% off, like exclusive discounts behind the scenes. It's great for Q and A's too. I think I don't think enough brand owners do this.

Speaker 1: 21:11

I think on TikTok and on Instagram, q and A's are amazing for humanizing the brand. I also will say I have a lot of thoughts on stories, so sorry if this is feeling all over the place, but I'm a big advocate for stories. I think they are perhaps the best feature on Instagram specifically, and I think TikTok needs a little bit of work, but I think they can become a really great feature on TikTok. But the Q and A's are amazing for A answering real audience questions. But you can also put questions in there. They don't know where they're coming from. I tell people to do this and they think it's shocking.

Speaker 1: 21:50

Put your own questions in the question box. Put your own questions in the Q and A's questions that you know your audience wants the answers to or you feel like they need to know, right? So, for example, like I said, if you offer a service, maybe the questions that you get when these clients come in the door and book with you are how often do I need to come back in? How, what's the maintenance like on this? Put that in the question box, answer it. You can answer your own questions. It's also kind of a good indicator that, like, yes, I want you to answer these. I'm actually going to be answering the questions. I actually want you to put questions in this box because I'm actually going to be answering it. It's almost like a lead by example situation. But TikTok is great for that. Instagram is great for that.

Speaker 1: 22:38

So, overall, I think stories are unbelievably underutilized by businesses. I think they are so important. Like I said, use them to reward the followers that you already have. Use it to answer questions that your audience has. Use it to humanize your brand and use it to sell. Don't be afraid to sell on stories. Again, they're there for 24 hours, you guys, they are there for 24 hours. You do not need to put too much thought into these stories. Just start uploading some stuff. Just start uploading some stuff to stories. Anyways, that's my overall thoughts on stories, tiktok stories, instagram stories definitely use them.

Speaker 1: 23:19

I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. If you did, definitely rate and review the podcast you would share it with a friend. Really helps us out, mostly the rating and reviews. Absolutely gorgeous of you guys to do. Also, like I said, if you want a free audit from me, the link is in the description and you can sign up for the email list. Also, we are taking new clients. I don't say this that often, but we are taking new clients. So, if you need email marketing, if you need organic social marketing, if you need someone to run an influencer campaign, if you need someone to run paid ads for you on socials or if you just need coaching calls, we offer one-on-one coaching calls where we build out the strategy with you and you get to execute it as you see fit. So, like I said, we're taking on new clients. If any of that sounds like you or if you have a friend that needs any of those services, our website is also in the description below and I'll talk to you guys next week. Bye.