Shout out to Candace Decker for alerting us to yet another new change on Instagram—this one all about location, location, location.
You know how Instagram Stories appear at the top of your screen with a row of profile icons? Well, if you’re checking Instagram on your phone, you’ll see that those icons are larger than they were before. This means that you will now see only three icons at a time.
The Instagram icons Candace is seeing show up first because they’re the most consistent with posting Stories. (We’re not at all surprised Byron Lazine is in there—he makes sure to start every morning with a Story and adds new ones throughout the day).
With fewer icons showing up at the top of users’ screens, it’s all the more important for agents using Instagram to follow the example set by these three and step up their Story game.
No shrinking violets allowed
We don’t love harping on the obvious, but if you want to secure those coveted spots on Instagram, you need to give the algorithm what it wants.
The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, recently provided a detailed update on how the algorithm—or algorithms (plural)—actually work (for the moment).
In a nutshell, for Instagram to recognize your content as something another user would like, they need to see people interacting with it. And the more content you put out there, the more likely users are to see it and interact with it, providing essential clues that your content is something those users want to see more of.
In other words, throwing out a post or two a week won’t cut it. You need to be at least as active on the platform as your ideal audience is.
And since Stories are vital to engaging with your audience and giving them a closer look at your life and your personality, you want to be cranking these out on the daily.
Otherwise, no one will ever see your icon at the top of their Instagram feed. But they might just see the icon of an industry pro who consistently posts Stories worth looking at. And people like that are going to get all the leads—or, at least, all the leads you could have gotten on Instagram.
So, what if you’re running low on Instagram Story ideas?
Here are a few ideas to get you started—courtesy of Haley Ingram of Coffee & Contracts —in this post.
If you’re looking for more June-specific content ideas for this month’s Stories, The Broke Agent has you covered with this post.
All the ideas in the world won’t help you unless you get started. So, how many Stories will you put out there today? How badly do you want to appear at the top of your audience’s IG feed when they open the app?
Keep that in mind as you work on your next batch of Stories.
