But first, some data (scroll down for the Instagram Stories Tips).

As I write this, Instagram Stories currently has 300 Million active monthly users. Snapchat is only at around 250. Why is this significant?

Well, first off, Snapchat has been around a lot longer than Instagram Stories. Snapchat was launched in 2012, and Instastories? Just barely 2 years ago.

The pickup on Instastories has been pretty fast and furious. People who were intimidated by Snapchat, or just never “got it” are doing Instagram Stories. Additionally, folks like me, who were avid Snapchatters, have abandoned the platform for Instagram Stories, because this is where our audience lives.

If you haven’t done Instagram Stories yet, grab some courage and go for it. It’s not hard to learn… watch some of the ones your friends are making to get a sense of what kind of content they are making. The idea is that it’s very casual, in the moment…. like a play by play of your life. And it doesn’t have to be perfect because it expires after 24 hours, anyway.

And, if you haven’t used Instagram Stories yet, let me offer you some data-driven reasons why you might want to.

First off, Instastories are not subject to the same algorithm that your regular posts are. When you publish, your post is only shown to about 10% of your audience. Then, based on engagement, IG shows your post to more people (or not).

The only real algorithm with Instagram Stories is the order in which they show up. So, if you watch one person’s stories a lot, you’ll find that they show up first a lot. But other than that, you can watch anyone’s stories.

Secondly, interaction with your Instastories counts as engagement. So, if you ask a question on your stories, and ask people to respond, that counts as engagement in Instagram’s eyes. And engagement is good (think about adding polls or sliders to do this easily).

According to this article from Union Metrics, who surveyed 72 Instagram accounts:

• 53% of the Instagram business profiles we analyzed posted to their Stories in the past 30 days
• They posted approximately 11 Story posts per month (median)
• They generated 3-6% more impressions than accounts that did not use Stories
• Stories accounted for 1-3% of the typical accounts posts in a month

So, get out there and make some stories!

Here are your Instagram Stories Tips: 

Instagram Stories Ideas: if you’re looking for inspiration, you should follow my friend Vicki McLeod. Watching her stories will give you good ideas about what you can do with yours. In addition, she’s created this cheat sheet with ideas you can download: Instagram-Story-Ideas.

13 Hidden Hacks to Make your Instagram Stories Stand Out: Instagram like a pro!

You can now save your favourite Instagram Stories permanently! Super cool, right? Well, did you know that you can create custom graphics for those stories? Yup, and here are some templates for you.

And just for good measure, 57 Instagram Hacks to up your Insta-game.

What are your favourite Instagram Stories tips? I’d love to hear how you are creating engagement with yours.