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3 Ways to Use Instagram Stories to Boost Your Brand With Stories disappearing after 24 hours, they become your chance to experiment with different creative content.

By Jon Horowitz

entrepreneur daily

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

More than 500 million people use Instagram Stories every day. As a brand, this gives you an opportunity to reach and regularly engage with a mass audience. In fact, over a third of the most viewed stories come directly from brands. With Stories disappearing after 24 hours, they become your chance to experiment with different creative content. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Get discovered.

Hashtags and geotags tags can help you become discoverable to your target audience. Adding these to appropriate stories on your account can help increase your number of followers while focusing on earning quality customers.

2. Create engaging content.

Instagram Stories are viewed vertically and use your entire screen. There are many features specific to Stories that are not available for Feed Posts. Learning the various features available and experimenting with them across your content can be a creative way to differentiate your brand from your competition. Try using the Poll feature to get feedback on business decisions such as what new product you may want to create since your customers can provide you with direct feedback.

3. Monitor your performance.

By understanding the analytics provided in Instagram, you can track the success of your Stories. Paying close attention to your view completion rate (what percentage of viewers watched the next Story in a sequence of multiple stories) is a key metric in understanding your performance. This will help you understand what type of content works best for you and improve it going forward.

Need some help with this, or have other social media or digital marketing questions? Book a consulting session with me on Entrepreneur's Ask an Expert platform. My schedule is always up to date, and you can even record the meeting if you'd like. Hope to speak with you soon, and have fun with your Instagram Stories!

Jon Horowitz

Founder & CEO of Millennial Marketing Group, Former VP of Jerry Media

Jon Horowitz is a digital marketing consultant based in New York City. After graduating from Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, Jon joined early stage startups and succeeded in growing multiple marketplaces from their launch. In his next role, Jon served as Vice President of Jerry Media, an influencer marketing agency that owns notable Instagram accounts like @f*ckjerry and @beigecardigan. He expanded the agency into a full service digital agency with a content creation arm designed for the needs of social media. His clients included companies of all sizes including General Mills, Viacom, Subway, Uniqlo, Bonobos, Puma and many more. Most notably, Jon won a Shorty Award for Native Advertising for his viral campaign for GMI brand, Fruit by the Foot. Currently, Jon serves as Founder and CEO of Millennial Marketing Group, an agency designed to help brands with social media, influencer and content marketing. Additionally, Jon has been a guest speaker at NYU, Cornell and served on panels to share his expertise on influencer marketing.

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