Instagram Stories Design Tips for Ecommerce Businesses
Instagram describes Stories as something that lets you “share all the moments of your day, not just the ones you want to keep on your profile”.
With the number of monthly Instagram users constantly increasing, eCommerce businesses should certainly start using Instagram Stories to grow their sales.
In this guide, I’m going to share with you 6 design tips for creating successful Instagram Stories that will make your followers engage with your eCommerce business.
So, if you want to take your Instagram account to the next level, keep these design tips in mind.
Let’s dive right into it.
Table of Contents
Design Tip #1: Post High-Quality Content
Design Tip #2: Use Brief, Easy-to-Read Text
Design Tip #3: Use Stickers, Doodles and Emojis
Design Tip #4: Use Swipe Up and Other Instagram Features
Design Tip #5: Maintain Stylistic Consistency Across Your Stories
Design Tip #6: Be (Slightly) Mysterious
Design Tip #1: Post High-Quality Content
The first design tip I’m going to give you is to use high-quality content on your Instagram and other social media posts.
As an e-Commerce business, your Instagram account works like a window to that business, and you should always strive to keep it looking at its best.
There are many ways to define high-quality content, but in this part of the guide, we’re focusing specifically on photography.
Taking a look at the following two Instagram Story templates made by design tool Visme , we notice how engaging they are at first glance, simply because of the high resolution of the pictures that have been used.
Here’s the first one:
And here’s the second:
Author’s Note: More details in relation to text and other elements that appear on such templates will be discussed later, so keep reading.
Whether you use your own pictures in order to showcase your products, services, online courses and other items online or you sometimes find it easier to use templates like the ones you’ve just seen, you should always make sure that what you’re posting is of high quality.
That is so important because of the visual association that’s created when your followers engage with your posts.
By sharing a fabulous, well-lit image to your Stories, you reassure your audience that the quality of your products is just as good.
Of course, there are various ways to highlight a well-made image.
As you can see in the above example, you can use the image as a background and add some text to it.
You can also separate the frame in two, as in the ‘Skincare Essentials Vertical’ template above, and separate the image from the text.
It all depends on how much of the image/product is important for you to show and which element is the most important in each of your Instagram Stories .
We’ll now move on to the second tip, where we’ll be talking a bit more about what text should look like on your business-related Instagram Stories .
Design Tip #2: Use Brief, Easy-to-Read Text
Here’s the second tip I have for you.
Let’s talk about text and the best way to incorporate it.
Although you sometimes simply need to post an image or video to get your message across, there will also be many instances where you need to include a few words about what you’re posting in order to engage your followers.
Any kind of text you choose to include in your Stories should be brief and most importantly, easy to read.
For example, if you’re sending someone to your membership site, you don’t need to present them with all the fine print on your Instagram Story.
The template below shows us how to give all the important information while ensuring the text remains both appealing and mysterious:
This way, users feel that they need to know more about it and are therefore more likely to visit your website.
The reason why short text is so important is because Instagram Stories last only for a maximum of 15 seconds, and you don’t want to overwhelm your followers with a huge amount of text that they have to rush through to finish in time.
Instead, you want your followers to read what you’re posting and possibly engage with it by swiping up, opening a link, etc. In short, you need to make it as easy for them to engage as possible.
As we can see on the template below, there’s a well-made graph and only a few words:
In this case, the smaller body of text is intriguing, inviting the viewer to press the button underneath to learn more.
The same can be noted of the template below, where the name of the company and the “menu” button are the most important elements on the page.
What’s different in this template is that there’s slightly more text than in the previous two.
However, the text is easy to read and doesn’t occupy a big part of the page.
All these three templates prove how a little bit of text can be eye-catching and engaging.
Feel free to use text on your Stories and follow simple techniques to highlight text such as writing in bold and/or italics, and use a bigger font size for the part of the text you wish to emphasize.
This way, your message will be simple and direct, as well as easily readable in just a few seconds (ideally, no longer than 10 seconds).
Something else I want to highlight here is that when you include text in your Instagram Stories , you should try and frame it.
In other words, try to place the text beautifully on or beside the image you’re using.
If there are more elements in your Story, you should make sure that the text or other ‘Click here’ or ‘Learn more’ buttons are easy to find, not lost within a huge number of graphics or other elements you may wish to include.
Speaking of elements, let’s get to some of these you can use to make your Instagram Stories more appealing and clickable (but not clickbaity!).
Design Tip #3: Use Stickers, Doodles and Emojis
This tip is all about the use of emojis, stickers, and all these other amazing, playful graphics that Instagram makes available to its users to make their Stories more engaging.
Stickers, emojis and other graphics are very popular among influencers and active users.
The reason why they’re so popular is because they can communicate a message in a brief and direct way.
In other words, you can pass on your message without having to write a long piece of copy.
As an eCommerce business , you should think of these graphics as an online language that you should try to speak fluently.
What I mean by this is, just as there are many ways to speak a language (vocabulary, accent, etc.), there are also many creative ways to use emojis and stickers, and you shouldn’t forget to include them.
Multinational company of personal care and beauty stores, Sephora , has a very strong presence online .
With around 20 million followers on Instagram, their Instagram Stories are a good example when it comes to discussing the use of stickers and emojis on this platform.
The Instagram Story below is a text-based one.
That means it uses almost only text, by which the viewer is invited to learn about the company’s offers.
They’ve already used loud, pink capital letters and numbers, but they still need to make sure the viewer will get the message.
For this reason, they use a hand sticker to direct the attention of their audience in a playful way.
Meanwhile, the screenshot below shows us how, instead of writing about the quality of a product (in this case, a face moisturizer), you can simply use a sticker to make the right association.
For example, rather than including a long piece of text explaining all the amazing results that this face cream will bring, you can simply use the gold stars stickers for your audience to get the same message.
As you’ve probably noticed, the stickers and emojis work in place of text.
These elements can highlight the quality of a product or promote an event in a way that’s more direct than text.
This way, the viewer won’t feel overwhelmed and will get the message in a more playful, contemporary way—a big trend within social media today.
Also, don’t forget that Instagram consistently launches new features from time to time, and it would be great to engage with them and see how your customers react.
Next, we’ll be looking at some of these features and how you can use them.
Design Tip #4: Use Swipe-Up and Other Instagram Features
Here’s another tip in relation to the design and look of your Instagram Stories .
Some of Instagram’s features include a variety of interactive stickers and buttons such as poll stickers, location stickers, a swipe-up button, and hashtag stickers.
These can serve to make your business account more popular, as users will engage more with it. The swipe-up feature should be a major part of your content promotion strategy.
Let’s get into some examples.
Starting from Visme’s Instagram templates , we can see where some of these buttons are usually placed.
On the template below, the “call to action” button is placed right under an eye-catching image of a dish.
After the viewer gets the visual message by looking at the picture for a few seconds, their attention is directed toward the button that will bring them closer to the company’s website.
The same technique is used on the following template.
First, there’s a little bit of information—in this case, text rather than image-based—and then, toward the middle of the page, there’s the button that really pops from the background thanks to the color choice, which invites the viewer to interact with the company.
However, even if you decide to use a ‘swipe up’ or ‘shop now’ button, you should still try to make the content of your Stories interesting and eye appealing.
By keeping your Stories well-curated, you’ll have more chances to make good use of those interactive buttons and encourage your followers to interact with your business.
Such buttons are usually placed toward the end of your Story, which makes absolute sense since you want your followers to have all the information they need before you ask them to act and lead them to your landing page.
Some of the most popular and successful eCommerce businesses use these call to action buttons as a very direct way of receiving feedback from their customers and asking them to interact simply by pressing buttons.
Multinational conglomerate company Amazon is likewise very active on social media, and all its platforms, such as Amazon Fashion and Amazon Music, have well-curated accounts.
The examples below come from the Amazon Fashion account , and showcase how you can make use of Instagram Story features in a way that make your followers willing to interact without getting tired of it.
Amazon Fashion posts minimalistic Stories that include just the right amount of information and no more than that.
The images are well-lit and very simple.
This leads the eye of the viewer to the ‘see more’ button on the bottom of the screen, which works as a kind of visual proposal.
Small businesses should try and use this approach, as it raises the chances of followers visiting their online store .
American eCommerce website Etsy is another great example of a company that makes use of interactive buttons in a subtle way, without making customers feel overwhelmed.
Here, they use a pretty background that’s harmoniously organized to match the little body of text included on the page.
At the bottom of the screen, there’s the “see more” button that invites the user to swipe up and discover more information about the product depicted on the screen.
Thus, we can understand that some of the most successful eCommerce businesses choose to create their Stories as a representation of a physical store window.
In other words, the same way you wouldn’t have a cluttered, dirty and disorganized space in your physical store, you shouldn’t have a disorganized online presence.
Let’s move on to another Instagram Stories feature that will definitely make your followers interact more with your business account.
This is considered part of the design tips we’re discussing here because it’s directly linked to the overall look of your business’s online presence.
Above, we can see an example of an Amazon Fashion Instagram Story.
This is again very minimal and includes sticker polls.
Stickers polls are part of the interactive stickers that Instagram currently offers its users, and we definitely think you should try them out to see how your customers will react and interact.
They’re a great way to convince your customers to interact with your business or give you feedback, or to simply ask their opinion on your products or other potential services you’re considering.
Remember, just 10 seconds is enough for quick yet effective interaction with your audience.
These sticker polls are also a great way for you to be present in the daily Instagram feed of your customers.
Another feature you should consider is the so-called location stickers to highlight your company’s attendance at an event.
This way, the viewer is intrigued and will most likely press the button to see where this place is, and will even possibly try to find some products linked to that event.
Location stickers are a good way to share some additional information with your audience, this time in relation to the location of one of your activities, without having to write a long piece of text that would make interaction more difficult or impossible.
Location stickers are also a great way to share a day in the life of your eCommerce business, in the same way that most influencers and active users do when they share a post or Story about their lives (for example, a special place they’ve been).
In terms of the design of your Story, such stickers are very easy to place pretty much anywhere you like.
Just make sure they’re there and that people can easily spot them!
Design Tip #5: Maintain Stylistic Consistency Across Your Stories
As we get toward the end of this brief design guide for your Instagram Stories , it’s very important to consider their overall look.
When it comes to business Instagram Stories, stylistic consistency is key!
What I mean by stylistic consistency is that you should see your Stories as a way to communicate some of your business’s qualities without having to actually talk or write about them.
In other words, it would be great if you could make a statement about your company’s aesthetics in all your Stories.
Here are two great examples of this concept being put into practice:
We could easily assume that these above Visme Instagram Stories templates come from the same Instagram account.
Consistency in terms of the general style of your Stories and posts means trying to present the same stylistic choices in most of the content you publicly share.
That means using similar colors and tones, similar fonts and font sizes, and similar graphics and other kinds of imagery.
Of course, this doesn’t mean your Stories should all look the same.
On the contrary, you should try to use all imaginative features and other elements you may wish to include—just without making each post completely different from one another.
Another good example to demonstrate what I’m talking about are these three Instagram Stories by eBay :
Image Source: Ebay
Image Source: Ebay
Each of these is simple and minimalistic, with just a few graphics, interactive buttons and pieces of text.
Most importantly, they look consistent in terms of style and design.
The color is the exact same tone in all three of them, as is the font and the framing of each Story.
You can be as imaginative as you want in terms of the colors you want to use and the font and font size, but remember to keep it consistent in terms of style—your Instagram followers will love it!
Bonus Tip: If you find it hard to achieve stylistic consistency across all your Stories, you could try and make groups of stylistically similar Stories and place these in the highlights section under your Instagram bio.
Let’s move on to the final tip I have for you.
Design Tip #6: Be (Slightly) Mysterious
We’ve come a long way, but we’ve now reached our last design tip.
It’s as simple as that: be mysterious!
You don’t want your Instagram Stories to reveal everything about your eCommerce business.
Instead, you want them to be intriguing and to invite your followers to explore more about your company.
As you’ve probably noticed from all the examples we’ve used throughout this post, from the most successful eCommerce companies in the world as well as the Visme Instagram templates, you need to keep it simple.
Let’s wrap things up!
Wrapping Up
By creating clean, simple, interactive and thought-through Instagram Stories, you invite your followers to participate, and to further explore your business and all you have to offer.
We hope that the tips and examples we’ve covered here will inspire you and make you yourself explore the exciting opportunities that the right use of Instagram stories can generate for your own eCommerce business.
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