The Short Version:
Use Stories to create a relationship with your followers.
Instagram Stories increase your recognizability and familiarity, increasing engagement.
Use Stories to increase post engagement via questions, increase DM's (to improve profile ranking) and reinforce aspirational/inspirational branding.
Upload Stories as often as possible to improve your overall profile ranking in the algorithm.
This boosts your profile discoverability and increases your long-term organic reach.
Use Stories as a means to drive engagement on your posts via questions too.
Ultimately, as a model on Instagram, the aim is for every single follower to feel like they're your friend, going through your day with you. Why? Because they'll comment more and engage with your content more. By doing this you'll get more reach, grow faster and be more likely to hit the 'Explore' page.
Psychological Benefits -
|Instagram stories are a great tool for making your followers feel closer to you. Walk them through your day, tell them how you feel, and share little moments with them. Stories also increase your facial familiarity, which also increases the likelihood of engagement when followers see you in the feed. This is where your personality should shine! It’s how you differentiate yourself from everyone and really set yourself apart.
Comment Trick -
Stories can also be used as a very easy to way to get ghost followers to begin engaging with you. Most followers will actually comment and engage with you if given the right opportunity. You can leverage Instagram Stories to give your followers an easy opportunity to engage with you, e.g. by asking for Netflix, food, movie, music suggestions. Find ways to easily allow your followers to engage with you, as many will if given a reason. As comments activity help significantly in the algorithm, be sure to reply to as many as possible!
Technical Benefit -
Frequently posting stories increases your rank in the algorithm. This increases your long-term average organic reach and profile discoverability. Instagram likes it when you post Stories, and hopefully, your followers do too if you do this is executed correctly!
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