Steal my super simple Instagram Stories Ideas

It’s here! My 6-part simple Instagram Stories Ideas (that will not only help you consistently show up on stories but convert your ideal clients too!)

Instagram Stories are my favourite feature of the entire platform, yet so many people feel stuck with what to put on them. 

And that’s probably because you’ve seen a bunch of people selling story templates with 365 vague ideas like ‘show a day in the life’… or ‘something inspirational’.

I’ve seen them too…. And it’s almost not helpful at all!

And… they don’t convert well.

Today I’m going to share with you my super simple Instagram Stories Strategy so that you can not only show up consistently on Instagram Stories BUT… you can also use Stories to their full advantage to help people enter your funnel.

I love to think about your Instagram Feed as the top of the Instagram Funnel (this is where you get seen and followed) and then Instagram Stories is where you build trust and get people into your lead magnets and excited to buy from you, and then Instagram Direct Messages is where you can also convert people to the sale (although I absolutely don’t teach strategies like cold messaging).

Here’s my Instagram Stories Hack: instead of thinking of 365 different things to post each day of the year, just think of an over-arching strategy for days of the week. That makes it really easy to remember what to post, and when and then you can also start to rinse and repeat Instagram Stories (yes… you can save sets of Instagram stories to your profile and repost them).

So, here’s my super simple Instagram Stories Flow (that also converts)

Side note: Instagram Stories are also where I’ve converted so many of my audience members into leads (and sales) – and one of the big ways we got 1,500 leads in just 3 weeks in the leadup to one of our launches.

1. Monday

Start with 1-2 polls that are highly relatable to your ideal client and that don’t require them to think much – something that they can easily say yes or no to, rather than having to think much about it.

Instagram stories are driven by algorithms, and if you want to consistently appear at the start of stories – you need to drive engagement – and the easiest form of engagement is with an easy-to-answer poll.

e.g. 

• Anyone else LOVE [thing] 
• How long have you been trying to conceive?
• Are you working with a naturopath?
• Have you ever tried the Keto diet?

>> Again, make sure these are things that are easy to answer but note: don’t ask random questions like ‘who loves cake’ – try to make sure it’s related to the season of life that your audience is in and what your account is about.

Then you’ll ask and ask anything (or about a particular thing) question sticker. This question is designed to give you an opportunity to lead towards showing people your expertise or leading them towards a recommendation for some other content or a lead magnet you have so again, don’t post random things.

So it might be:

• Ask me anything
• What questions do you have about the Mediterranean Diet?
• What are you finding hardest about trying to conceive?
• What is your biggest struggle with meditation?

2. Tuesday

Answer the top 5 – 7 questions….. ideally ones that are relatable and can lead to your content pillars.

Where appropriate, you can let people know that you have a resource (such as a blog post or an opt-in) that is helpful. 

If you get loads of q’s reply by DM to those who didn’t have theirs answered publicly. This is where you can start to build a relationship with people in the DM’s (don’t overthink it – just be helpful) – but remember – if someone has taken the time to submit a question – this means they’re further down the line of most others in your audience, so it’s a worthwhile investment of your time to answer their question.

Doing so will also place you further up in the algorithm, whilst also being helpful.

Tip: Honestly – do make sure you’re replying to all of the questions and building relationships – these are your WARMEST leads and it could mean double your next launch sales when you’ve taken the time to reply to people (huge ROI)

The only reason I say to only answer 5 – 7 questions publicly is that if you answer too many it will probably disengage a number of people, who will tune out after a while – it’s important to be as entertaining as possible – you want high and engaging Instagram Stories (because this is where you’ll do a LOT of your converting)

3. Wednesday

Poll stickers about your Opt-in… but again – make it easy for people to answer!!! Anything that is not a visceral yes or no (or firm answer that people will instantly know) is going to result in low engagement, and don’t make this a question sticker – make it a poll sticker.

• Do you struggle with this?
• Do you wish?
• I have something that can help you [from A to B]
• Have you received my [opt-in] yet? (Answers – Yes! Loved it … and… No. Send me the Link!)
• Then, you can DM folks who ticked to send me the link… the link

(Don’t be spammy – you don’t have to pitch and you don’t have to start a sales sequence – just send them the thing they said they’d like the link to). You can save the answers in your saved replies to people or just copy and paste a message like:

“Hey, I saw that you asked for me to send you through the link to [insert thing here] – here it is: insert a link. You’re going to love it (maybe one or two reasons to encourage them to actually click through). Let me know how you go with it. Thanks so much!”

4. Thursday

• Share behind the scenes
• Share testimonials
• Share wins from clients
• Share why people should work with you
• Get them to DM you ‘ready’ if they’d like to know more.

Be consistently sharing these in the context of stories – about yourself and about your clients – the more you wrap your testimonials and client wins in context, the more views (and conversions) you’ll receive.

This is a day to show social proof and position yourself as an expert. You may have some testimonials already saved on your computer. Get into the habit of regularly sharing any testimonials you have from clients.

5. Friday

Create a set of 5 short stories about your journey/transformation. Share and rotate them on this day (i.e. perhaps you create a series of 8 and share one story every two months)

• How do you get started?
• When you started to struggle 
• How you got to where you want to be?

Remember not to put too much text on each slide (particularly since many people still don’t know to hold down the screen to pause stories) and to start with the punchline – nobody wants a story that starts with “it was a cold Autumn day” but everyone wants to keep reading a story that begins with “I never thought I’d wake up with a Tesla parked in my lounge room. Here’s what happened….”

6. Saturday

I’ll typically share client wins and a short recap of what’s happened across the week

Share 2-3 more testimonials followed by a call to action for your lead magnet or an offer.

N.B. remember not to just say ‘hey, here’s a thing’ with a link.

Always come back to asking them a question, telling a story or something that is highly relatable.

7. Sunday

Go dark. Save one day per week when you have 24+ hours when you have nothing posted on your Instagram Stories. This will actually help reset your views ready for the following day and bring them back up again.

Things I share liberally on Instagram Stories

Here’s a few things I share frequently on Instagram Stories

1. What I’m working on today – I’ll frequently open up the day with a list of what’s happening in the day. Why? Because I want my clients to see BTS of my life, but moreso – the types of work I do and the types of people I work with and problems I solve. As always – the more context you can provide – the more opportunity you’ll have to convert people. (For example – instead of sharing 2 x 1:1 client appointments – share – working with a client to support her with growing her Instagram from 1,000 to 10,000. This is our 4th meeting and over that time we’ve [results]. We’ve done this step-by-step, starting with [a few steps]
2. Anything that builds authority and social proof – if I receive a nice message or a question in the DM’s I’ll often share it if I think it’s valuable to my audience.
3. Client wins – although I try to be intentional and share on specific days – I’ll also try to share liberally throughout the week

So there it is! My super simple Instagram Stories Flow!

Want to learn more of my secrets for Instagram (and how I’ve grown an account to 20,000 that has converted into clients?) – Click here to see my Likes to Leads Toolkit (the best bundle of resources to help you turn your Instagram into a 24/7 leads and sales machine)

I highly encourage you to try out this strategy for 14 days and circle back to let me know how you go.

Posting consistently on Instagram Stories and also getting them to convert well has been one of my favourite tools over the last two years and made a radical difference to my conversions on the platform.

You can come and follow me @robynbirkin to see how I run my stories too.

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