How to Increase Your Story Views on Instagram organically

If you’ve stumbled onto my page, you’re probably struggling with low story views on Instagram. There could be a number of reasons why your IG stories aren’t doing well, some are obvious and others might surprise you! 

Why should my business focus on Instagram Stories?

Before we start, I want to make sure it’s clear, but the majority of your reach won’t come from Stories. In fact, IG Stories aren’t designed to increase reach, especially lately. Instagram is doing away with the few features that helped with organic reach, like story hashtags and geotagging, so now the focus is truly on building relationships with existing followers.  

Instagram stories are a way to connect with your audience and build a closer relationship. A portion of your following will be incentivized to follow your stories for extra bonuses that you don’t share anywhere else on Instagram. The people viewing your stories consistently are super fans and it’s important to cultivate and nurture this section of your audience. 

Although I just stated that Stories won’t increase your reach directly, the use of them can increase your overall reach on the IG platform. The Instagram algorithm factors in your use of multiple parts of the platform, so if you’re currently only putting out feed posts, story posts are a great way to influence the algorithm in your favor. 

Without further ado, here are the strategies you need to implement in order to see an increase in Instagram story views on your account.

Stay Consistent

Instagram requires COMMITMENT. It’s not enough to post once a week or once a month. If you really want your views to increase, posting daily or multiple times a day will be key in increasing visibility to more of your followers. 

Once you’ve decided how often you want to post, stay consistent! Don’t commit to posting daily one week and post almost nothing the next. If you want more people watching your story, you’ll have to stick to a schedule. 

Bonus Tip #1: Every time you post a story, your account will move to the front of the queue. If you post multiple times per day and space out the times, your profile will appear as the front of the line for anyone logged in at that time. This is the perfect way to maximize your visibility for more story views. 

Bonus Tip #2: There is a such thing as “too many” Instagram stories. Don’t bombard your audience with too many stories, as the bars above your post will increase. If this bar looks too overwhelming, people will skip your story altogether. 

Post Quality Content

It’s easy to repost the content of others, but that’s not what will keep people watching. In order to do well on Instagram stories, just like on the other parts of the platform, you need to come with quality. And by quality, I don’t mean aesthetics.

Quality content for stories is down-to-earth, informative and entertaining. It’s a place to get personal and reveal extra goodies that viewers won’t be able to access anywhere else. 

Your audience won’t care how polished and well-edited your content is. A simple selfie video will do in order to establish a more intimate relationship. If your business has staff members, feature them in stories to give your business a face and people for the viewers to connect to. Stories is also a great place to share your Reels, if you’ve posted any, as they will play automatically, unlike IGTVs. 

Interact with your Followers

It’s not enough to just post quality content! You have to engage your followers with polls, quizzes, and Q&A. Instagram makes it easy to use these features, so there’s no excuse to not post them! Not only can you collect direct client & customer feedback, but the Instagram algorithm will take Story interactions into account when determining your reach. 

Access these features, you will need to search through stickers before posting your photo or video. You’ll find all of the engagement stickers at the front of the sticker catalogue. 

Aside from using stickers, be sure to acknowledge followers who reply to your stories. By responding, you will be nurturing the relationship with that follower, and also are more likely to show up in that follower’s feed and Story queue more often. As of the publication of this article, story replies are still sent straight to the DM inbox, which plays a part in getting a boost by the algorithm. 

Work on your camera presence

As someone who regularly gets compliments for my presence on Stories, I have learned the importance of engaging viewers with a camera friendly attitude. To achieve this, there are several tips to keep in mind. 

• Maintain eye contact with the camera.
• Speak loudly and clearly.
• Try your best to sound upbeat.
• Talk more quickly than your regular pace.
• Be concise and straight to the point in order to keep viewers’ attentions

Most important of all is PRACTICE. If you’re not a natural on camera, only practice will help you improve. Investing time into this if you will be representing your brand is so important and can help establish your credibility. If confidence comes across in your videos, your viewers will be more likely to engage and to trust your words. 

Feeling a little overwhelmed by all of this? I don’t blame you. Your time and commitment will be very important when trying to increase your Instagram story views and cutting corners won’t help. If you choose to hire a professional social media content creator, they can help you with scripting content, filming, and using engagement stickers to encourage audience participation. 

If you’re interested in learning more about the services I offer, check them out here.