How to use Instagram Stories question stickers to engage with your audience and strengthen your business

With more than 90% of Instagram’s one billion users following at least one business account, Instagram is an important and powerful platform for companies. While you can use Instagram posts to showcase your business and your products or services, Instagram Stories allow you to engage directly with your customers.

To help you make your stories more fun and interesting, Instagram has been constantly adding interactive stickers. The question sticker was introduced to Instagram Stories in 2018 and it offers a great way to engage directly with your audience and strengthen your business in a variety of ways.

Host a Q&A session

Using the question sticker to host a Q&A session seems like a no-brainer. However, there are many ways to make this fun and entertaining for your followers.

You could talk about specific topics that are relevant to your brand or give your followers a behind-the-scenes look into your company.

Don’t forget to let your followers know when you will be posting your answers so they can check back in and see them.

It is important not to use Q&A sessions randomly. They should always align with your brand and your business strategy— otherwise it is a waste of time and resources and won’t yield the expected results. Select your Q&A questions carefully and also put some thought into what time slot might be best for posting them.

Collect feedback

Besides the classic Q&A session, the question sticker on Instagram Stories is also a great way to collect feedback from your customers. What better way to ask them how they feel about something than using a question sticker in your story?

Old Navy, for example, has used question stickers to ask users directly about the company’s new flip-flops.

Asking your customers how they like a product shows them that you are taking them seriously and that you are interested in what they have to say. It is also a great market research technique, as the answers can show you how to improve your products. Another way to get feedback and connect on a more personal level with your customers is to use the question sticker to encourage testimonials. You can also use question stickers to gather feedback by asking your audience about their personal interests, or you can crowdsource ideas.

Ask for suggestions

A slightly different way of gathering customer feedback is to ask for their suggestions. It is a clever way to switch the focus to your customers, because instead of asking them about your products or services, which can seem like a constant and annoying ad if you overdo it, you open the arena for their ideas.

If you run a company in the music industry, for example, you could ask your followers for their suggestions on the best music to relax to on weekends or about their favorite roadtrip songs.

Asking for tips allows you to create engaging content, boost interaction, and gather important feedback without seeming spammy.

Answer FAQs

FAQs got their name for a reason; they are literally the questions you have to answer the most frequently about your company, service or product. You can obviously feature a FAQ section on your website, but in addition, it can be helpful to also use interactive question stickers to answer FAQs on Instagram Stories.

This approach makes sense because first, you are showing your customers content you already know they are curious about. Second, it is an additional way to get useful information out there and your customers will appreciate the extra help. Third, if you pin your FAQ story to your highlights, it will be visible on top of your feed and can therefore become a great resource for your customers.

Start a competition

You can use question stickers to start a competition among your fans. This is both a fun and creative way to use the feature and to boost engagement.

Give your fans several clues by asking them questions – and have them guess the correct answer. To boost engagement even more, you could offer a prize to the first person who guesses correctly. Make-up brands like to use this feature by having fans guess what color a new lipstick or a new eye shadow might have. This not only gets followers engaged, but also helps build the anticipation for a new product.

Announce new products or services

Obviously, there are many ways to feature the launch of a new product or service and the question sticker on Instagram Stories might not seem like the most intuitive way for it. At the same time, the question sticker can offer an element of surprise, and it will make your new product stand out more.

Air Canada, for example, uses a question about the traditional Brazilian dish feijoada to promote their new route from Montreal to São Paolo.

Announcing new products through question stickers can start a conversation about your new item and create some buzz around it. It is not a feature you should use too often though, because it can seem too promotional if you overdo it.

Link to a website

Similarly, question stickers can be a clever way to guide followers to your website if you make sure to provide interesting content for them. Otherwise, users will perceive them as commercial content and will likely turn away from them.

Fashion blogger The Fashion Muse, for example, takes questions her fans send her and then uses question stickers to answer them while also linking her answers to affiliate websites.

Feature a takeover

Takeovers involve a person or brand temporarily taking over your business’s Instagram account. For example, you could open your account to a relevant influencer and have them host a Q&A or answer the audience’s questions about your business.

The luggage company Away regularly features takeovers where different employees answer travel-related questions, such as how they pack their suitcases or where they go on vacation. It’s a great way to show the people behind the brand and get users excited about traveling.

Takeovers not only give your customers an inside look into your business, they also offer a new, fresh, and very personable perspective on your company. This might seem like a side aspect, but don’t underestimate the power of being a relatable brand.

Brands that can establish an emotional connection with their customers are twice as likely to retain them, and customers that perceive a business as personable are more loyal.

Share your values

A brand’s position on social and political issues has become increasingly important to consumers. The 2020 Consumer Culture Report, for instance, reveals that for 83% of millennials, value alignment is key when making a purchase.

Customers want to know where your brand stands on important issues. The question sticker on Instagram Stories can be one way of sharing your values with them.

For instance, if you feel strongly about racial inequality, you can post a story that showcases your position, and then use the question sticker to ask your fans where they stand.

That could be a good way to share your company’s values and to engage in a conversation with your audience.

Question stickers in Instagram Stories: Dos and Don’ts

While question stickers allow brands to interact with their audiences in many ways, there are a few things to watch out for when using the feature.

1. Don’t overdo it

If you are constantly asking your fans to answer questions, it will get tiring for them after a while. So, make sure to use question stickers thoughtfully and carefully— for example, when you want to ask more complex questions. For simple binary questions, you could switch it up with poll stickers or use the quiz stickers if you want to add a fun game element to your questions.

2. Make your questions fun

Let’s be honest; users are on Instagram because they want to be entertained, not because they want to be drilled with questions. Therefore, your questions should be fun for them, rather than inquisitive or draining. Think about what your audience likes to talk about and design your questions in a way that is helpful for your business, but also entertaining for your followers.

3. Put some thought into it

Ultimately, as with every marketing element, you should use question stickers on Instagram Stories to help your brand. If you are a retail company and ask your followers about their favorite desserts, it might prompt a lot of responses, but it won’t have anything to do with your brand, and it therefore will have very little benefit for your business.

Instead, take the time to think about questions that are relevant for both your audience and your company. As a retail brand, it might make more sense to ask customers a question like “How do you wear your boyfriend jeans in the winter?” This helps start a discussion that is engaging, while at the same time helping your business.

Also, think about when you want to post your questions. Depending on your audience, the time slot you choose can make a huge difference in engagement numbers. Luckily, there are tools out there that can help you with planning your stories.

4. Use Storrito to plan your stories

Storrito, for example, is an online tool that you can use to plan and schedule your Instagram Stories on your desktop. You can upload files, edit them, and include interactive elements such as question stickers easily.

Storrito gives you the means and the time to carefully curate your stories, so you can get the most out of them for your business. Since Storrito is a collaborative tool, multiple users can access the stories from their own devices.

It allows your team to work together on a story and figure out the best content strategy for the different interactive elements. If you are not sure how to best include interactive elements on Instagram Stories, read our ultimate guide on how to use interactive stickers and how they can benefit your brand.