Instagram Stories are one of the best ways to keeping people interested in your brand or product. About 5% of your audience will watch your Instagram Stories. But those who watch it are more likely to stay connected to you and your brand.

In fact, 45% of IG users look to Stories to find out what's trending and 58% of users are more interested in brands they've seen Stories from.

In this article, we're going to share Instagram Story ideas that you can create with ease to build a stronger connection with your followers.

29 Instagram Story Ideas to Try

1. Conduct a Poll
2. Host a Giveaway
3. Create a Quiz
4. Have a Q&A Session
5. Get Feedback from Your Followers
6. Share a Link to Your Website or Other Content
7. Start a Stories Domino Effect
8. Repost User Generated Content
9. Use Emoji Sliders
10. Encourage Responses
11. Share Behind the Scenes Footage
12. Host a Weekly Series on Stories
13. Make Unfiltered, Vlog-Style Content
14. Count Down to an Event or Product Launch
15. Host a Flash Discount Sale
16. Share Customer Success Stories
17. Tease a Reel or New Post
18. Share an Unboxing Video
19. Encourage Your Followers to Donate to a Cause
20. Celebrate Follower Milestones
21. Post a Photo and Video Dump
22. Compare Two Items
23. Share Customer Feedback
24. Showcase Your Talent
25. Share Progress Photos
26. Add Music to Set a Tone
27. Use GIFs for Personality
28. Teach Your Viewers Something New
29. Share News and Updates

Let's jump into it.

Interactive Instagram Story Ideas

1. Conduct a Poll

You can use an Instagram Story poll sticker to run a poll on your Instagram account. You can ask a question on the poll and list up to four choices. Whether you run a Yes or No poll or list various unique answers to help you decide on something is up to you.

As a fashion influencer, you might have people help you choose an outfit for an event. As a brand, you might ask people to choose from a list of features to help you prioritize what you add next. Or you could run polls to help you make a decision and see what your followers think before diving in.

2. Host a Giveaway

Hosting a giveaway on your Instagram Stories is a great way to build engagement and get people interacting with your Instagram account. As a creator, you can host a giveaway of a brand's product that you're partnering with. For example, if you're a beauty influencer and brands constantly reach out to you to promote their products, this could be a way to increase engagement with your followers while still promoting the brand.

Alternatively, if you own a brand, you could promote a giveaway to your own followers to get them to try your product if they haven't already. Typically, giveaways on Instagram work best when collaborating with another social media user to get some of their followers to follow you.

3. Create a Quiz

You can use the quiz sticker on your Instagram Story to help build an interactive element into your Stories. The quiz sticker is similar to the poll sticker. The only difference is that with the quiz sticker there is a right answer that lights up.

A dietician or food influencer might use a quiz to help educate their followers in an Instagram Story about healthy eating. Quizzes are a great way to build education into your content to help debunk industry myths and help people get on the right track by having the right information.

Not sure what to ask? Let Instagram come up with the questions for you. Just roll the dice on the editing screen and choose the questions you like best.

4. Have a Q&A Session

Using the Questions sticker is a great way to start a conversation with Instagram Stories. The best part is that there's not much prep work involved.

Choose a pic or even just a solid color background and add the Questions sticker and a call to action, like, "Ask me anything about my recent trip!" As your followers' questions begin to roll in, pick which ones you want to address in Stories. You can answer in writing or turn on the front cam to share a more personal response.

This Instagram Story idea is so versatile: you can use this "Ask Me Anything" format to share about yourself and let your followers get to know you better or you can use it as a chance to field questions about an upcoming product launch, sale, or other event that customers are interested in.

5. Get Feedback from Your Followers

Whether you're contemplating getting curtain bangs or deciding on your next project or product, make the decision-making process easier on yourself by outsourcing it.

Your Instagram followers will be more than happy to share their opinions; all you have to do is ask. Use the interactive tools native to Instagram Stories, like Polls or the emoji slider, or just ask users to respond to your Story with a DM.

6. Share a Link to Your Website or Content

Instagram no longer limits links in Stories to accounts with a certain number of followers. That's great news if you get a lot of Stories views and want to drive that traffic to other places, like a YouTube channel, blog, online store, or relevant resource you want your followers to see.

As a content creator, you could add a link to your recipe, where you purchased an item in your Instagram Story, or a blog post you wrote. As a brand, you'll most likely direct people to a landing page, product page, blog post, or a high-intent page to convert your followers into buyers.

7. Start a Stories Domino Effect

The best thing about Instagram Stories is how interactive it is. The Add Yours sticker allows you to take the conversation to the next level. Not only will you be able to see who's added to the Story, other people will see both the pics and the prompt in their friends' Stories if they participated. That's a great way to reach a new audience.

Use this sticker to ask followers to share their favorite way to use your product, their best memory from a recent trip, a cute pic of their dog, or anything relevant and relatable. This sticker also has the dice feature, so if you can't think of a prompt, Instagram's got you covered.

8. Repost User Generated Content

Social media accounts that often share user-generated content will likely receive more of it. Instagram Stories are a great place to show off UGC. Not only does it give you a break from having to put so much creative energy in, it's also a nice way to say thanks to fans, followers, or customers for engaging with you. Bonus: you won't end up bloating your Instagram feed with user-generated content.

Share posts or Stories that tag you or show someone using your product or speaking about your brand. And those posts don't have to just be from Instagram. If you haven't been explicitly tagged in the post, though, it's best practice to ask for permission to share, first.

You can also ask people to share user-generated content with you that you'll re-post in your Stories to encourage people to create more content for you.

9. Use Emoji Sliders

Another interactive Instagram Story feature is the emoji slider that lets viewers rate something. If you're looking to get feedback on something, using this emoji slider is a great way to get a response. As a creator, you'll be able to see how many people answered and what the average response was.

You might ask people to rate a movie you want to see, the new hairstyle you did for someone, or ask for feedback on a product you just launched. Ultimately, it's a great way to promote yourself and receive genuine feedback from others without having to read any critical comments. Moving the slider is an easy interactive activity that allows people to feel like their vote matters without asking them to type a whole question or even think all that critically.

10. Encourage Responses

In your Instagram Stories, ask questions or post pictures that help bait responses from people. For example, if you're sharing personal stories from your life, people will feel compelled to share advice with you or showcase support. You could also ask for feedback on a specific topic on how to deal with a situation that you're struggling to see an easy resolution for.

As a brand, you could give a sneak peek into something you're close to launching and ask people to guess what that something is. Social media is all about getting people to engage with you, so trying to get a response or reaction out of people will be helpful for building rapport with your followers.

Using the Questions or Poll stickers are a good way to facilitate this kind of discussion, but you can also just leave the "Send message" feature on and let the DMs roll in organically.

Creative Instagram Story Ideas

11. Share Behind the Scenes Footage

Whether you're giving a sneak peek at an upcoming project or sharing secrets behind the making of a fan favorite product, behind the scenes Stories are always popular.

Sharing BTS pictures and videos makes your audience feel like they have access to something exclusive. It can also humanize your brand and gives you a chance to be more personal.

12. Host a Weekly Series on Stories

Serialized content is an awesome way to get followers to keep coming back to your Stories. If they know what to expect and when to expect it, they'll tune in every week just like you would to a favorite TV show or podcast.

Having a series also helps you keep your content calendar full without having to come up with hundreds of new ideas. You decide how much production effort goes into the series. Something like a #FunFactFriday could be as simple as talking to your front-facing camera or as elaborate as a multi-slide presentation.

Give your series some sticking power by making it a Highlight that will live on your profile so followers can catch up on any "episodes" they might have missed.

13. Make Unfiltered, Vlog-Style Content

This Instagram Story idea works particularly well if you're going on a trip or to an event, but even if you're just taking your viewers through what an average day in the life looks like for you, it's still a fun and easy way to get active on Stories.

What's fun about "vlogging" with Instagram Stories is that it's more real-time than filming, editing, and publishing a traditional vlog to Youtube. Use that to engage viewers by asking questions, taking suggestions, and building suspense. Instead of publishing all the videos and photos you took at the end of the day, record and publish as things are happening so your viewers feel like they're experiencing it with you.

Pro tip: Add auto captions to your Stories if you're talking directly to camera in a crowded place.

14. Count Down to an Event or Product Launch

If you have an upcoming event or launch, you can use Instagram Stories to generate hype by posting a count down. Whether you're sharing some big news with your followers or releasing a new product, you can build anticipation that something newsworthy is coming to your page soon.

A countdown timer could also be used to show how much time is left before a sale ends to create a sense of urgency. Either way, it's a fun way to get people to take an action of waiting for news to celebrate or purchase from you.

Even if it's not your event that you're counting down to, a count down is great for getting the conversation started about something that your community is interested in, like the Golden Globes or the Super Bowl.

Use Instagram's Countdown sticker to make the count down even more engaging and shareable. Your followers will be able to turn on reminders and share it to their own Stories.

15. Host a Flash Discount Sale

If you're creating an upcoming event for your business, offering a flash discount sale can be an effective form of Instagram marketing. You can either try the countdown timer we just talked about or add a discount code for a limited time. After all, Stories only stay up for 24 hours if you don't add it to your Instagram Story highlights, so once the sale event leaves your Stories feed, it's gone forever.

If you own an online store, sharing a promo code with a deadline on when the sale ends can be a great way to get a rush of people to your website. If you're hosting a weekend sale, you might want to create another story the next day once it disappears from people's feeds to keep it at top of mind or to promote a different collection.

16. Share Customer Success Stories

Another idea for Instagram Story content is customer or client spotlights. If you teach people how to create online courses, you might share the courses your students make with your followers and highlight their accomplishments.

Alternatively, if you help people achieve business results, you could share people's business wins to inspire your followers to work with you to get similar results. It adds an element of social proof that people do collaborate with you and end up with a result worth sharing. Plus, it makes your existing customers and clients feel good about your working relationship and will make them more likely to recommend you in the future.

Related Article: 18 YouTube Shorts Ideas for Your Next Viral Video

Cute Instagram Story Ideas

17. Tease a Reel or New Post

Often, followers see your Stories because they show up at the top of their feed but posts can get buried under content from other accounts. If you tend to get more reach from your Instagram Stories than you do from your feed posts, there's an opportunity there!

One of Instagram's share features allows users to share a post to their IG Story. Share to your own Story whenever you publish a new post to help send a little more traffic its way. To make sure users actually click through to the post and don't just view it from Stories, make them work for it a little bit.

You can do this by adding an Instagram sticker or GIF over the post picture in your Story so people know there's something new to see but can't quite see it.

This way, they'll tap on the image in the Story, taking them to the post so they can see the whole picture (especially if it's a carousel!).

Similar to sharing your latest Instagram post to your Stories for a bit of extra reach, you can also share Reels — either your own or someone else's. Anyone viewing your Story will only be able to watch the first 15 seconds of the Reel in Stories, so they'll have to tap through to watch the rest of it in Reels. We recommend adding a sticker with a call to action like "Tap Here to Watch" for extra punch.

Use this an opportunity to drive extra traffic to your own Reel or to share content from an account that you admire, are collaborating with, or just think deserves more views. Lifting up smaller voices when you have a large platform is always a good move.

Related Article: 19 Instagram Reels Ideas to Help You Go Viral

18. Share an Unboxing Video

Unboxing videos are super popular across platforms. If you're curating a certain aesthetic on your grid and don't want to share unboxing content to the main feed, Instagram Stories is a great place for it.

You can share an unboxing video of your own product (if you make a product) or of things that have been sent to you, either by brands or by fans. At the end of the day, people love seeing other people open packages. It's like second-hand Christmas and these casual videos are easy and fun to shoot.

19. Encourage Followers to Donate to a Cause

Use your platform for good! The Instagram Donate button allows you to link to a verified charity on the platform so that your followers can learn about and donate to a cause that's important to you.

Give your Story some sticking power by adding it to a Highlight on your profile, so that your followers can find and donate to your charity of choice even after your Story's disappeared from their homepage.

20. Celebrate Follower Milestones

If you're looking for new content ideas for your Stories, celebrating follower milestones is an easy way to create stories. When you've achieved a big milestone, such as 10,000, 50,000, or even 500,000 followers, you might add a fun sticker to your post where you share that you've just crossed a new threshold.

People will often be happy for your newfound, growing success. You might even get comments of people congratulating you on your new follower count. Plus, it really is a great way to showcase social proof to keep your followers following along. Thanking people for following you shows a sense of gratitude and appreciation, too.

Instagram Story Ideas for Photos

21. Post a Photo and Video Dump

When Instagram Stories first rolled out, most people used it as a place to post pictures and videos that weren't "good enough" for their feed. Stories has had quite the glow up since then and now accounts for a quarter of all Instagram ad revenue. But that doesn't mean it's not still a great place to photo dump.

Whether the pics and videos don't fit the aesthetic of your grid or you just got so many good shots that you couldn't pick just one for the 'gram, go ahead and share them to Stories. Posting more than one Story in a row is better for engagement anyway, since followers watch longer. All good things according to ~the algorithm.~

22. Compare Two Items

A popular Instagram Story idea for small businesses is the "This or That" game where they compare two products or things and have customers vote on them.

This is a great way to build engagement in your Instagram Stories while also better understanding which products your customers like better. For example, if you own a small fashion brand, understanding the fashion sense your customers prefer is a great way to keep buying more of the products that they like.

However, beyond customer research, the This or That game of comparing two items helps promote your shoppable products too. When customers make a choice between two items, if they really like one of them, they'll likely visit your website to make a purchase. So, overall, it's a fun, engaging tactic to try on your Instagram account.

23. Share Customer Feedback

Your Instagram Stories are a great place to share your wins. If you've received an exciting five-star review for your small business or a genuine compliment that made you ooze of happiness you can share it in your Instagram Story. You could screenshot the review or add reviews to Instagram Story templates to highlight the positive feedback you received.

Typically, content creators and brands don't share negative feedback unless it's truly hateful and they're looking to end hate speech on their account. When sharing negative feedback, aim to use it as an opportunity to educate if it's hateful or to share that you're working on improving if it's something that's product-related.

24. Showcase Your Talent

One of the Instagram Story ideas you can try is highlighting what you're great at. For example, if you have a knack for baking, you might share your dessert creations on your Instagram Stories. Since every design you bake looks so different from the next, there are nearly endless content possibilities for your Stories.

Pair this with an Instagram Reels strategy for a one-two punch of content: Viewers see the process in a Reel on their feed and see the stunning final results photos on your Stories.

Whether it's video content or photographic, sharing the things you do best is a great way to get people to check out your stories. People love seeing talented people online and sharing or saving content of things that stand out.

25. Share Progress Photos

A person with a fitness coaching business might share before and after photos of their client's results with the help of their training in their Instagram Stories. Showing progress photos could be a great way to build social proof for your business to help people see the impact you have when you work with someone.

Beyond the fitness industry, progress photos are a great way to show "Then vs. Now." No matter what industry you're in, people love seeing how things are made or change over time. Creating Instagram Stories with a time lapse of photos of how things are made could boost your engagement on social media.

Cool Instagram Story Ideas

26. Add Music to Set a Tone

Adding music to your Instagram Story can be a great way to make your video content more engaging. Choose a song that matches the vibe of the video and makes it more compelling.

For instance, if you're doing something mundane like eating a sandwich in a video, you could add music that makes eating a sandwich look more entertaining. The song choice could make something seem hilarious or add a more emotional effect to your content to make your videos really stand out.

27. Use GIFs for Personality

Using gifs to new pictures or videos from your camera roll can make your next story seem a lot funnier or give it an edge of personality. Gifs can also add an element of play into your content and it adds some personality too. Rather than just posting content, adding a gif to your post can set a tone or mood to your content too.

So, if you're looking to build rapport with potential customers, a gif can set the emotional tone of your personal brand. Are you playful, funny, or have a huge personality? Gifs can be used on your own content to keep your audience engaged.

28. Teach Your Viewers Something New

You can use your Instagram Stories to share educational content with your followers. Whether you teach someone how to build something you made or share clips of the process of how something is made, tutorials are great if you're stuck on content ideas.

Everyone is an expert at something, so taking the time to share what you know is a great way to give back to your followers. People love learning new things on social media. Tutorials are an easy way to educate people and keep them engaged with your content.

29. Share News and Updates

One of the more personal Instagram Story ideas you can post on your account is sharing news. If you're an independent content creator or entrepreneur/CEO running a small business account, you can share personal news about celebrating a birthday, becoming a parent, starting or ending a relationship or new job, or even facing a health scare.

As a brand, you can share brand-related news and updates about your company or industry. These stories can still be personal and relatable if you showcase the people behind the brand or even the people that your brand serves.

Remember that real life stories shared on social media always have a way of better connecting with people. People love helping people through their struggles and celebrating them when they triumph.

Conclusion

The perfect IG Story ideas can come from anywhere: reading the comments you get on your profile, browsing other Instagram accounts, funny TikTok trends. Pair those ideas with your own unique ways to present information to your followers, based on what you know they like.

As a content creator, there are endless possibilities of the types of Instagram Stories you can create to keep your audience engaged with you for years to come.

For teams looking to create engaging content in your Instagram Stories, check out Kapwing's video editor for social media agencies and small teams.