Instagram Story Trends in 2019

In 2019, Stories have continued to dominate the Instagram landscape. In fact, they are seeing the fastest growth EVER, even in comparison to other platforms. To put it in perspective: In the beginning of 2017, there were about 100 million people using Stories every day. At the end of 2018, there were 400 million. That’s four times the audience in less than two years!

In 2019, Stories will continue to become even bigger than that. With Stories ads, shoppable stickers, gifs, filters, templates, and more fun things available, missing out on Stories means missing out on growth and retention.

No worries! We’ve got your back. Here are five Instagram Story trends you need to take advantage of as a business owner:

• Ads

With the popularity of the Instagram Stories feature, it’s a good idea to use it to promote and sell your products. Instagram states that about 400 million users view Stories every day and one-third of the most-viewed Stories are from brands. Brands such as Gap, for example, have seen amazing success from leveraging Instagram Story ads: a 73 percent higher click-through rate than in its previous Instagram campaigns. To get started with your own Instagram Story Ads, use your Facebook Ads Manager account to create your ad and go live.

• Buying direct on Instagram

With Instagram’s Shopping Feature followers can buy products directly, which will make them more likely to buy from you. This is a trend that will continue to grow in 2019 and the coming years; Buyer’s want convenience and the ability to purchase products via the platforms they actually use: Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Snapchat and other social channels.

• Stories Highlights

Instagram Stories are great, but they vanish after 24 hours. And that’s where the Stories Highlights feature comes in: you can save your best Stories and keep them on your account as long as you want. Anyone that visits your Instagram profile will be able to see your Stories Highlights at the top of your page and view the ones they want.

There are many ways to leverage this feature; for example, you can create Stories that promote your brand, Stories that promote specific products or events, and Stories that explain what your brand is all about. Make sure to save the best performing Stories as well, so that you can continue to drive people to see them and preferably, follow through on your call to action.

• Cinemagraphs and Video Clips

There is a lot of content to compete with on Instagram, not just from other brands, but also from social influencers and people’s own friends and families.

A great way to stand out and improve your engagement is to post varied content and try own new forms of content; one such form content that’s been making waves is cinemagraphs. Cinemagraphs are essentially still images with just a little bit of motion in them. Google it – They’re pretty awesome. To create your very own cinemagraphs, you can use an app like PLOTAVERSE.

Another unique way to share your message is to include videos in your stories. You can use an app such as Unfold to inlay video clips from your IG TV, Facebook Lives, and more into story templates. These are great for sharing media sneak peeks with your audience.

• Hashtags

Here we go again, like a broken record – we know. It may not be the newest or shiniest tool in the shed, but it’s a tried and true one. You don’t want to miss those opportunities to attract potential new followers to your page by skipping on hashtags in your Stories. Your hashtags can be bold and blatant or subtle and hidden. The choice is yours – just make sure you’re using them.

Instagram is increasingly becoming the social media platform of the “now.” It’s more immediate than ever, with disappearing, urgency-creating content taking over the permanent feed posts. What does this mean for your business and Instagram strategy? It means that you must produce content consistently and post at regular intervals.

If you’re stuck on content ideas or overwhelmed with the idea of creating it all yourself, check out our social content company, @sociallystyledco, on Instagram. Each month, you can purchase a Socially Styled content kit to help you plan out your social accounts. We include several beautifully branded photos, social media prompts, plug and post captions and even story topic ideas – All for only $10!

2019 is bound to be a very exciting year for Instagram marketing. There are more ways to promote and sell your products, more ways to create exciting content and more ways to get your audience to engage and take action. Use more Instagram Stories in 2019 — We cannot stress it enough!