Instagram is a special channel in the influencer world. It’s a magical place where people share their most beautiful, inspirational and aspirational images and videos. Within each carefully curated page is an opportunity for followers to communicate with the influencer to show support, spread the love and let them know “hey, I see you!”. Not only is this interaction available through the influencer’s crafted page but also through their Instagram Stories. Here, influencers have the chance to share more of themselves, the products they love and causes they support with the Instagram community.

I’m sure you’re wondering, “how can content that only lasts 24-hours really be that effective for my brand when working with influencers?”. Good question! Instagram stories do more than simply entertain. They inform, they can be interactive, they can give you a sneak peek into your favorite influencer’s life, almost like a behind the scenes look. Stories allow users to directly communicate with their audiences and vice versa. They’re almost like the breath of the body of Instagram. Stories have certain features, like “Swipe Up” that a stagnant Instagram post doesn’t have, allowing the follower to quickly, and efficiently, visit web-pages without having to leave the content they’re currently viewing to “visit the link in bio”. This is especially helpful for campaigns with a Traffic objective where the goal is to get people to click to visit a featured website page. For campaigns focused on driving engagement, Instagram stories utilizing key features such as quizes, polls, emoji sliders (rating scale), question stickers, and Swipe Up, among others, and are strongly encouraged as they “get the people going” and interacting with the content.

>> How to Get More Followers on Instagram: The Complete Guide <<

Since these posts only last 24-hours, unless added to an influencer’s highlights but we can talk about that later, most people explore creative ways to display their story frames that may not always follow their page aesthetic and THAT’S OK! There are so many different ways to create an Instagram Story frame so, as long as it aligns with the overall goal of the program, let them be free to create how they feel led. You may end up getting more engagement or views that way!

Best Practices for Hiring an Influencer to Produce Instagram Stories:

#1) Use The ABC's of Influencer Selection     

FIRST AND FOREMOST, it's crucial that you select an influencer partner that aligns with your audience, brand, and content - along with your campaign goals. Most brands and agencies select influencers for the wrong reasons (high reach or a pretty IG feed) or neglect to dig deeper while vetting (look at those IG stories, not just the main feed!) which can be very dangerous for your overall reputation and objective if you’re not careful.

#2) Watch The Influencer’s IG Stories

We're saying it a second time for the people in the back. If you want an influencer to create story content, you need to see what their story content currently consists of. And because the content changes so frequently, you should be checking over a longer period of time and not just once. This should help you decide if you want to partner with the influencer on this type of content for your influencer marketing campaign. Not everyone is successful in this area, even if they do well in other areas on the 'gram.

#3) Set Clear Guidelines

Think about what parameters you want the influencer to stay within. Be sure to provide enough direction to help them to meet campaign objectives – but BE CAREFUL and make sure you do allow for creative freedom. Since these stories only last 24 hours, no need to be too strict where you don’t have to be. If you followed Best Practice #1 above, this shouldn’t be an issue! 😊

#4) Always Ask for a Draft to Review Before They Post Live

If you’re worried about Best Practice #3, here you go! It’s so much easier to tweak things (for legal and product safety) BEFORE it goes live. Just make sure you're not asking the influencers to constantly redo their work. Some revisions may require extra compensation if you didn't include such direction from the beginning.

#5) Always Request Data Slides of Completed Stories

Remember, this content only stays live for 24-hours. So make sure you request the data insights, per story frame, after their stories have run (but not before your 24-hour window runs out). There are ways to gather this information "after the content has dissapeared", but it's not easy. Do yourself a favor and request ahead of time to ensure you have a full look at the performance of each frame, per influencer. 

If the above seems daunting and time-consuming, that’s because it is! If you want the best results, you do have to put in a bit of elbow grease when selecting influencers and deciding how you want to leverage tools like Instagram Stories in your influencer marketing efforts. But, lucky for you, there’s a little company called Carusele…that’s us…who does this all day errr day and are more than happy to take this daunting task off your hands. Help us, help you by contacting us today using the form below.