Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Instagram’s stories has quite quickly become the standout feature of the app, allowing you to share delightfully ephemeral clips and pics that vanish after just 24 hours. Sounds familiar, right? The feature was cribbed shamelessly from Snapchat.

If you use Instagram Stories to share the times you’re at your drunken, debauched worst, you’re probably glad to know that the feature comes with some pretty nifty filtering features. This means you can block your boss from watching your stories, without having to block them from the rest of your posts.

How does this work in practice? Well, suppose I just posted a story showing me binge-watching The West Wing when I should be working. If I wanted to keep Alejandro Tauber, TNW’s Editor in Chief, from watching it, I’d just have to dive into the Options menu, tap Story Settings, and then select Hide Story From. Then, I can just have to key in the first few characters of the account I wish to block....

Stories provides Instagram users with a chance to share posts at a higher frequency. While Instagram photos are typically reserved for perfectly composed shots, Stories allows you to share the little moments that may not be as picture-perfect.

Instagram is positioning this feature as a solution to over posting. There is a significant separate space where your Instagram Stories live and you can post as frequently as you want without worrying about over flooding your friends’ feeds or filling the grid on your profile page.

So, how does it work and how can it be helpful in building your marketing strategy? Don’t worry we have got you covered.

Before we start with how Instagram stories works,  let’s first have a glance at how they appear on your Instagram profile....

With so many companies using Instagram, and many people on the platform interacting with them, there was a desire from our business community to do more. So we listened. And, after hundreds of interviews with businesses, three key needs became clear—stand out, get insights and find new customers.

First, businesses want the ability to stand out on Instagram. Many companies, including a furniture store in San Francisco, shared that it would be easier for customers to email questions because comments are hard to track and take time to sift through. Second, businesses want a simple way to get insights. A retailer in Austin explained that many analytics are overwhelming and hard to apply to its marketing. And third, businesses want to reach even more customers. A do-it-yourself craft shop in New York City mentioned it’s always looking for quick ways to fill seats in class.

With these insights in mind, we set out to make Instagram work even better for businesses. So today, we’re excited to unveil our new Instagram Business Tools....

Instagram is an underutilized tool for business - only 28% of marketers currently use Instagram. With the image-based platform on the rise, now's the time to get started with Instagram marketing. These Instagram tools and apps will help you make the most of your Instagram effortts, whether it's creating captivating posts, monitoring your Instagram analytics or coverting your Instagram followers to customers. Here are the top 10 tools and apps you need to create a fool-proof Instagram marketing plan....

After passing the 300 million users mark a few months ago, Instagram is one of the most popular social media networks, second only to Facebook, which by the way owns Instagram. For everyday users, it’s an excellent way to build and grow an audience and showcase their creativity.

Businesses, on the other hand, can rely on Instagram for creating brand awareness, audience building and content marketing, as well as for selling.

In this post, I go over 8 different types of tools you can use to take your Instagram marketing efforts to the next level, whether you’re a solopreneur, small business owner or are part of a social media marketing team....