Why Are My Instagram Story Views So Low & How Can I Increase Them?
Instagram is a vital part of marketing, whether you are a social media personality or a business. And Stories are a big part of that.
So if you’re struggling with low Instagram Story views, let’s look at how to increase them.
What Is An Instagram Story View?
An Instagram Story view refers to when someone opens your Story on the Instagram app.
Instagram Story views are measured using two different metrics: Reach and impressions.
- Impressions refer to the total number of views your Story gets, including accounts who have looked at it multiple times.
- Reach, on the other hand, reflects the number of unique users who have viewed your Story.
Both metrics are important to understand how people are engaging with your content.
Why Are Instagram Story Views Important?
Instagram Story views are important because Stories are one of the most interactive ways for people to see and engage with your content. Not only can they ‘like’ them, but they can also react, interact directly through polls and other Story features, and share Stories with their friends.
Because Stories disappear after 24 hours, they are a chance to be a bit more creative and authentic than your more curated Instagram feed. They are an incredible way to help establish your brand personality.
The number of views shows you how widely your content is being seen. Instagram also promotes Stories based on their engagement, so the more views and engagement you get, the bigger your reach can be.
5 Reasons Why Your Instagram Story Views Are So Low & How To Fix It
Firstly, Instagram has been clearing out bots and fake accounts, and many people have noticed this causing a dip in their Story views. So don’t panic if you are experiencing this. What is most important is getting authentic views.
Instagram Stories are a great way to generate organic traffic to your account, so let’s look at why your views may be low and how to boost them with some practical solutions.
Uninteresting Or Unengaging Content
If your content is boring, people are not going to click on your Stories. So, it’s important to always be making a good impression with your Stories. This means high-quality posts, not things that are blurry or poorly done.
Solution: Understand The Market
As well as making well-produced content, you need to see what is popular in your niche. You can do this by looking at other big accounts in your space, and by scrolling through the Explore page to see what Instagram is promoting to people.
Something else to explore is User Generated Content (UGC). This means sharing things that users, typically your followers, have made about you or your brand. This shows engagement with your community and gives you some more content to share.
Not Posting Enough
You want to create interest in your Instagram Stories, and you can’t do that if you hardly ever post any.
People need to know that they will find content on your Stories when they look for it. Try posting Stories every day to give your audience regular content.
Solution: Work Out The Ideal Posting Frequency
This is something that will vary from account to account. Various sources say that 2-7 Stories a day are ideal, but you will need to test out varying frequencies.
Starting at around 5 Stories a day and then increasing and decreasing from there is a good way to get a feel for your audience.
Don’t forget that you can also repurpose content to help you to maintain a good posting frequency.
Posting At Bad Times
No matter how good your content is, people can’t see it if they aren’t online. Different demographic groups are more active at different times. So, you need to identify when your followers are most likely to see and interact with your Stories.
Solution: Research And Trial And Error
There are two ways to learn the best post times. The first is to go to your ‘Insights’, click on ‘Total Followers’, and then on ‘Most Active Times’. This gives you a good guideline of when your audience is online.
Secondly, you can do some good old-fashioned trial and error. Try posting Stories at different times and monitor your reach and impressions to find the best times to post for your specific account.
Not Making Your Stories Discoverable
If your Stories are only popping up for your existing followers, your views are going to be lower. You want to make it easy for people to stumble across your content to gain a wider reach.
Solution: Tag Your Stories
One of the best ways to help people discover your Stories (and the rest of your content) is by using hashtags. You can use common appropriate hashtags, or use a service to help you do deeper analytics to see the best hashtags in your sphere.
You should also tag location, allowing people to use Instagram to discover geographically relevant accounts. This is just another way to make your content easier to find.
Stories That Aren’t Interactive
If your Stories are just a slideshow of photos, there is not a lot for your followers to interact with, making them less likely to come back to your Stories.
Solution: Use The Features
To fix this issue, use the features Instagram provides, like polls, quizzes, and stickers. This type of content gets more impressions because people find it interesting and can engage with it.
Ask your followers to vote in polls or use a sliding scale to rate things. You can also ask them open-ended questions to generate deeper engagement.
Strategies And Tips For Increasing Instagram Story Views
Here are some extra ways to bump up your Story views.
Use Reels
At the moment, Instagram Reels generate around 22% more engagement than videos or photos. So make sure to share lots of Reels to your Stories to help boost engagement.
This doesn’t mean you can’t post other content to your Stories, but it’s important to post what gets the best results.
Run Contests And Giveaways
A great way to create interactive engagement is to run contests and giveaways on your Story. Generally, this will involve people needing to share your Story to enter the giveaway for some sort of prize. This helps to boost your reach.
Influencer Takeover
For a fun twist, get an influencer to take over your Stories for a day. This creates interesting Stories but also brings that influencer’s followers to your account. Make sure that the influencer’s audience aligns with your target audience.
Make Sure You Are Interacting Too
The more active your account is, the more widely the Instagram algorithm shares your Stories. So be sure to be busy liking, commenting, and sharing other people’s content.
Manage Ghost/Spam Accounts
Something that is more important than you might think is the ratio of Story views in relation to your follower count. Knowing this percentage can help you better understand your audience.
It can also help you identify ‘ghost’ followers who never engage with your content, and can actually harm your analytics.
Accounts with better engagement get promoted more and these followers can skew your ratio. You can remove them, but it needs to be done manually and is quite labor-intensive.
Repurpose Content
Not everything you post to your Story has to be wholly original. You can share feed posts there too (as well as Reels). You can also use Stories as a way to highlight old content that may be relevant at certain times.
Common Mistakes To Avoid When Increasing Instagram Story Views
Now that we’ve looked at what you should do, here are a few mistakes to avoid.
Buying Views And Likes
While buying views may seem like a simple solution to low Story views, this will actually harm your engagement. While there might be a short-term spike, these views are meaningless.
Instagram also has ways of detecting spam accounts and can penalize your account if too many of your views come from bots. This means that you will get less real-person engagement, which is the whole point of Stories.
Posting Too Often
Posting frequency is an essential part of boosting your Instagram Story views. However, while you need to post often, it’s also important not to overcorrect and post constantly. This creates two new problems.
Firstly, it is hard to generate tons of quality content every day. If you’re trying to post 20 Stories a day, the quality of your content will decrease, which makes people less likely to watch it or engage.
Secondly, people don’t want to be overwhelmed with content. Posting too often means your Stories become annoying, and people are more likely to scroll past them. You need to use trial and error to determine the right posting frequency for your account.
Conclusion
So now you have a better idea of why you might be struggling with Instagram Story views, and how to fix that problem. These practical tips will elevate your content and expand your reach.
But to truly explode your Instagram presence, check out ShoppableSocial, and watch your account skyrocket to success.
