Influencers and brands across social media platforms constantly seek to increase engagement rates. Aside from posting at the best times, producing quality, immersive content can hold an audience’s attention and increase interaction.
Instagram is a highly visual social network with multiple features to help creators post videos and stories. Instagram was the 9th most visited website on the net at the time of writing, and it had a bounce rate of 68.76%.
This was the second-highest bounce rate out of all the top twenty most popular websites. The worst? Microsoft Online at number 20.
Bounce rates are an issue on social media, and keeping an audience entertained can be tricky. Getting that audience to engage with your content can be even more challenging. One way that you could try, though, is Insta Stories with polls.
What are Instagram Stories?
Six years ago, in 2016, Instagram launched Stories. This allowed users to make fast, short-form video content to reveal exciting moments from their day in easy-to-digest bite-sized pieces.
Instagram Stories are restricted to 15 seconds, although longer videos can be created and sliced up. And they only stay on feeds for 24 hours. Individuals can use them to make exciting content easily and by brands. Social media marketing affects small businesses, and tools such as Stories are cost-effective and can boost engagement.
Stories also have another feature called stickers. These elements can be added to any story created and are designed to increase interaction and make the videos more immersive. One of the stickers available is for running a poll.
How do you use poll votes in Stories?
Polls give followers another way to interact with your content. They are yet more visual content that you can add easily to gain your audience’s attention, and they can provide valuable data.
Polls can help you get feedback about your current products or your content. You can ask for votes on specific events you want to host or gauge excitement about upcoming product launches.
Polls take seconds to add but can help improve engagement rates quickly. You simply have to add the poll sticker to your story and then edit the question and how you want the response to be. The default is yes/no but this can be customized.
Once published, your votes will be shown in real-time. The more engagement you have, the more likely it is for others to follow suit and vote. This is one reason for buying Instagram votes to get a poll running successfully. The herd mentality that can exist on Instagram means that by boosting your votes, you will naturally obtain more.
Are Stories and polls effective at increasing engagement rates?
In 2019, it was judged that around 500 million people were using Instagram stories, and about 30% of the most popular stories were from business accounts.
However, one study put Instagram engagement across all industries at just 0.67%. It is clear that to increase audiences and engagement, quality content is needed. Stories offer a rapid video form that can appeal to time-strapped or bored audiences. Quick-fire videos with interactive content such as polls or other stickers are effective at boosting engagement rates.
Finding content that works for your audience may take some time, and Instagram offers insights into stories. By using the insights feature, you can see a number of metrics, including reach, impressions, replies, taps forward and back, and how many people swiped away to another account.
Using insights means that you can discover what Insta Stories work and which ones are receiving the most engagement.
How else can you boost engagement with Insta Stories?
Polls aren’t the only sticker that can be used with stories. Engagement can be boosted through the other available stickers including questions, quizzes, captions, and the emoji slider.
Quizzes and giveaways are a great way to interact and grow an audience. Great giveaway ideas boost Instagram engagement, and influencers often indulge their audiences this way.
Using the question sticker can introduce interaction to your story and get feedback for a specific question. You can ask such questions as what is your favorite brand? Caption stickers help to introduce more information and improve the visual aspect of stories. This is particularly important for any viewer who is hearing impaired or watching with the sound off.
All in all, stickers make Instagram Stories more engaging and can be used creatively to gather data in some circumstances.
Summary
Poll votes combined with Instagram stories are an effective way to boost engagement. As bounce rates are high, the short period allocated to stories makes them ideal for quick interactions.
Posting one Insta Story a day will also help keep your brand in your follower’s feeds, improve awareness and increase interaction.