If you’ve got a huge Facebook audience, it’s probably easy to just throw anything into your Facebook Story and it’s sure to gain traction. BUT if you’ve got a small and growing audience, you’re going to have to add a bit more strategy to appealing to your audience and capturing their attention, so they’ll want to view your stories on an ongoing basis.
Certain types of content have a higher appeal to your target market than others do. Knowing what your audience prefers is very important to your overall success, as well as the level of engagement your story receives. When you implement stories using the content and information your viewers want, you’re more likely to get a good deal of engagement.
Here are a few suggestions to help you discover exactly what compels your viewers to take action and engage with your story. Be sure you track the results so you can repeat your successes by following the same steps. Give these a try and see how your audience responds. Make a note which types work best.
Behind The Scenes
Behind the scenes videos and images let people get to know you, your values, and your items better. This also helps you to build trust as well as greater brand recognition, especially if you include your logo in the visual story. If you are a sole proprietor, share the story of how you first started out in business. If you are a company, share staff stories about what they do and what motivates them.
When you are working on a new product, give them a sneak preview. If you are hosting a webinar or live event, use video excerpts (or teasers) to entice people to attend live, or to view recordings afterwards.
Once your target audience feels that they know and trust you, this can stimulate brand loyalty, which can in turn bring sales, repeat sales, and/or a desire to share your content with others.
Informative Demonstrations
Demonstrations are an ideal way to market products and services. In your stories, share hints, tips and how-tos, as a series of images with text overlay and/or videos. “Seeing is believing,” as they say. This is particularly true and works well for your visual and hands-on learners.
In addition, demos show off your expertise. Address the main issues your target audience has, in relation to your niche. Plan your story content around them. Save the stories to your camera roll, within your Instagram account. Doing this repeatedly allows you to build a library of useful content you can publish regularly there and on Facebook. As your number of followers grows, they will be able to see these stories.
Intriguing Teasers
People love movie trailers and sneak previews. Create stories made from snippets of a larger work. Include a strong call to action and a clickable link where your viewers can learn more on the topic. Keep in mind that teasers are meant to pique interest, not tell the whole story. This is often accomplished by sharing exciting clips and ending the teaser with a cliff-hanger to make them want to see the rest of the longer story/video.
Exclusive Offers
Stories are a great way to provide exclusive, limited time offers to a specific group or to fast-acting viewers. Use a coupon code to track the success of each offer you create. Save the best holiday or yearly promotions on your camera roll so you can re-use them. Prospective followers are more likely to follow you and engage with your stories if you give them a good reason to do so. Exclusive, valuable offers fit that bill.
User-Generated Content
User-generated content can help create buzz around your business. It can also take the burden off you a little in relation to constantly having to come up with fresh content for your site, blog and social accounts.
Run contests to get images, captions, videos and so on, making it clear that the best content will be used by you. Ask for video reviews and testimonials. Ask for questions and answer them. Invite guest bloggers. Giving your target audience the chance to provide feedback shows you care and promotes engagement.
You could also invite a takeover. Pay attention to those who are most diligent about following you on Instagram. Let them take over your account for 24 hours to publish what they feel is useful content. It gives you a break for a day and gives your audience a new “voice” to pay attention to.
Surveys, Polls & Activities
Learn more about your audience so you can serve them better. Ask them what they need help with. Get their opinions regarding options for your next product, have them vote on the options they want most. Plan to do random, prize drawings. These can keep things interesting and engaging.
Those are just a few ideas to try out and see how your audience likes them. Never stop experimenting and keep engaging that audience. It’s worth it to have you on their mind.
What to Do Next: Get $10 Off Our Done-for-You Facebook Story Templates
Our Facebook Story Template Package makes it easy for you to create eye-catching stories for a variety of business-building purposes.
The package includes:
Click here to grab the Facebook Story template package.
And, of course, use our special coupon code to get an additional $10 off the already discounted price. Coupon code: 10TEMPLATES
You can use these templates for your own business, help your clients with getting clients or even include the templates in products you provide to your customers. The choice is yours!