Having talked about the power of the Instagram Stories campaign, InstaBF also started a free guide to planning out your first Stories campaign. Ready to go on?
Figure Out Your Strategy and Creative
Deciding on the creative direction you will have a Story campaign totally different from your ordinary stories content. And if you feel uncertain about the strategy and creative direction, we offer to your attention four basic elements to pay close attention to.
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Define Your Campaign’s Concept
Whatever concept lies in the basis of your Insta Stories campaign, it must be closely tied to the campaign goals. For instance, if you aim at promoting a new product line, the concept must be driving sales and the creatives to use should include product stickers, clicks on the link in the bio, swipe-ups to your brand’s website, and so forth.
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Designate the Visual Style of Your Stories Campaign
Just as it’s important to have a brand voice, building a Stories banding kit is a must. It includes inspirational imagery, a static color palette, a design style guide, fonts, defined filters.
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Draft the campaign message and editorial style of your campaign
Having schemed a campaign message you will feel sure about introducing, explaining and even selling your product as long as the campaign is consistent. Hence, draft a couple of words that you’re going to weave during every campaign asset.
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Distinguish with the Stories features
It’s definitely a good idea to establish particularly what features of Stories you’re going to use in promoting the campaign. In case it’s built around a giveaway, which is time-sensitive, a countdown sticker will create interest around it the best.
And don’t neglect Spark AR effects! You can always create and promote AR effects related to your own brand to drive more traction.
Get a Storyboard for the campaign
A storyboard is a visual representation of your campaign that will help you foresee how it will unfold right from the beginning. It will help you determine how to convey your message most effectively.
Create the Assets
Now it’s time to get down with your Stories Campaign Assets, i.e. the content you’ll post including images, videos, GIFs, graphics, etc. Depending on the scope of the campaign, the assets will drastically differ. For instance, in case if you plan to promote a giveaway or a contest, lifestyle shots, illustration, UGC might work well as assets.
Schedule the Campaign
Now just combine all the components and create your Instagram content calendar. It’s not necessary to have the official launch day of a product/event identical to the timeline of Instagram. Besides, think about the lifespan of the content you’ll share and the frequency.
Promote the Campaign
The basic goal of any Instagram Stories campaign is to reach as many people as possible. For its promotion, draft a strategy. Create hype around it with a countdown sticker, partner with compatible influencers to build excitement, create a campaign hashtag, etc.
Go Live on Instagram on the Campaign Launch Day
Besides getting ready to answer questions, monitor the excitement and engage with your community on the launch day of the Stories campaign, there are several other points to perform. Here are they:
- Update your bio;
- Be quick with DM responses;
- Reshare the content your followers share;
- Go live for Q&A.
How successful the Stories campaign was, can be determined through Instagram metrics. Track your brand awareness KPIs (engagement rate, impressions, signups, e-commerce purchases, etc.).