Think about your Stories going beyond the scroll and not fading into the feed, but as a sequence that makes people pause, tap, and come back for more. This guide will share tactical and actionable bite-sized tips that will put your basics to use and help you learn how to get more views on Instagram stories.
By using these formulas, you can increase average story views from tripling the original amount to over 2,000 views for my most popular stories.
I will also share the setup, the creative formulas, and a few templates that are also usable as swipe-up to use in your promotion immediately.
How to Get More Views on Instagram Stories: Top 8 Proven Ways
Are you interested in increasing your Instagram Story views? I have put together eight simple tips that will work just as well in the competitive social media of Instagram.
1. Use Engagement Stickers Like Polls & Add Yours
Interactive elements are like your closest allies when you want to escalate the user interaction on your Story. When used effectively, you’ll have people tapping, sliding, or answering every time.
Some of the ways to get more views on Instagram stories are:
- Polls: Present two alternatives to your audience and get those votes flowing! Polls are great; they energize the audience to engage and interact.
- Questions: Request your viewers to submit their answer or opinion.
- Add Yours: Using the trendy Add Yours sticker in your stories will help your stories and make them visible for most of the non-followers who use the same template as yours.
To achieve the highest interaction, it is better to have very short (6-8 words max) and exciting questions.
2. Post an Extra Story at the End of the Day
According to studies, if you want to share content on your Story, it is advised that you do it during the lunch hour (11 am 2 pm). After that, you can post an extra Story in the evening that will be seen by a different segment of your audience.
Also, on weekends, Fridays are better because they are more likely to spend time browsing, but most of these researches are for specific countries and specific audience, so we explained how to find the best time to post reels or story based on your own audience below.
How to Find the Best Time to Post Instagram Stories
To effectively increase Instagram story views, you need to post your stories when most of your audience is online and active. You can use Instagram insights or analytics to find the best time based on your niche.
Analytics provides crucial metrics, including:
- Most Active Times
- Story exists.
- Story replies.
- Taps back (viewers revisiting stories).
- Taps forward (viewers skipping ahead).
- Replies
- Sticker Taps
By checking these metrics, you can not only find the best time to post your Stories to get more views, but also discover what type of content is more engaging to your audience.
For example, high replies and taps back indicate strong engagement, whereas exits and taps forward suggest my content needs improvement.
Schedule Stories for Most Active Times
Why Planning? Planning and scheduling Stories is a way to change the random posting of Stories into a repeatable system that increases reach, completion, and engagement, which together lead to more views.
Planning is one of the important things that makes you stand out by having a routine story posting, but you cannot schedule Instagram Stories directly within the Instagram app, so you can use an Instagram Scheduler.
Instead, many tools and apps offer you a drag-and-drop of stories onto their storyboard, so you can see them together, schedule your stories on Instagram, and see how they will flow.
Planning this way helps me create a better story, which will ultimately get more engagement.
My simple process is:
- Upload my content to the Story Planner media library.
- Drag the stories onto the storyboard and arrange them in the order I prefer.
- Add captions with links.
- Schedule a good time to post.
The planner sends notifications when it’s time to post, so you’ll never miss a good time again. That type of consistency has helped me double my story views in just a couple of weeks.
3. Share Exclusive or Time-Sensitive Content
People love feeling special. When you share time-sensitive or exclusive offers (flash sales), or important updates only in your Stories, you create a sense of urgency to check, and viewers want to feel special and feel they have exclusivity to something.
When you offer exclusive content and encourage your followers to reply to you to get the information or the content in their direct message, you might get so many replies to handle alone, so for this, we tell you what to do in the next part.
Automating Replies with Tools
Some tools let you set up automated responses to story replies, helping you maintain engagement even when you’re offline. This is particularly useful for collecting leads or promoting products.
Setting up story reply automation is straightforward:
- Create a new automation in a tool.
- Select “Story Reply” as the trigger.
- Configure it for all stories or specific ones.
- Set up keyword detection (optional).
- Create response messages with link buttons.
Responding instantly to followers who interact with my stories, this automation has made me lead capture and engagement increase.
Through the use of these tools, I have saved time, and at the same time, my Instagram Stories have become more effective in reaching and engaging my audience.
4. Use the Close Friends List to Boost Visibility
It’s a small trick that you probably would like to utilize: Instagram promotes Stories shared with Close Friends at the top of the feeds of people who follow you.
When your followers are on your Close Friends list, they feel special, like VIPs, which makes them more likely to pay attention.
However, with this method, you grab the attention of your followers, but you will lose the chance to get more views from users who are not currently your followers. So, use this method when you want to make your followers see a Sroty.
5. Add Relevant Hashtags & Location Tags
One of the best ways to get more views on your Instagram Stories is by using hashtags. In Stories, the maximum number of hashtags that you can use is 10. Nevertheless, it is better to use 1-3 popular Instagram hashtags in your Stories so they do not appear as spam.
Location tags are essential as they allow your Stories to be found by those people who are looking at that particular place, even if they are not your followers.
6. Collaborate with Other Creators or Brands
Collaborating with a different creator or brand gives you access to their followers. Similarly, they are getting access to your followers.
Essentially, what you are doing is introducing your brand to the people who might not have known you otherwise, and followers can be the outcome of that!
7. Post Frequently Throughout the Day
Instagram Head Adam Mosseri believes that you must upload multiple Stories every day. Consistency is like telling the platform that you are a “quality account,” and thus, your engagement gets better.
You can even post more than once in a day, 1-2 times, and still be fine, but the rule of thumb is that quality content should always come before quantity.
8. Encourage Followers to Turn on Story Notifications
Asking your followers to enable story notifications is a very simple method to make sure that your most loyal fans are always aware of your Stories.
However, this is the point where a lot of creators lose their way; just asking is not enough. You need to provide your audience with a reason for doing it.
Here are some actionable tips and call to action (CTA) concepts to help you get more followers to click that bell.
Tips to Get Followers to Turn On Story Notifications:
- Offer a reason they care about: Let your followers know what they’ll gain; early access to drops, exclusive updates, or behind-the-scenes content.
- Show it visually: Record a quick Story showing where to tap the bell icon, or add an arrow/animation pointing to it.
- Create a “Turn On 🔔” Story highlight: Make a short explainer reel and pin it permanently on your profile.
- Add interactivity: Use polls, quizzes, or countdowns that end with “Turn on notifications so you don’t miss the reveal!”
- Leverage FOMO: Post a quick recap of something that only notification users saw first; it builds urgency and curiosity.
Welcome new followers: Add a reminder in your welcome Story or highlight, inviting them to hit the bell.
In order to turn on notifications, your followers need to access your profile, click on the Notifications button, which is located at the top right corner, and then select the option for their Stories.
9. Highlight Your Stories
Story Highlights basically give you a way to save your 24-hour stories as permanent, easily accessible content on your profile, and it is this permanence that directly brings more views.
The Highlights are available just below your bio, so any new visitor to your profile can simply tap through the organized Story collections at any time. If you use them wisely, they will continue to expose your content to fresh and familiar viewers instead of disappearing.
How Highlights help:
- Keep your best content visible longer.
- Capture profile visitors.
- Drive repeat engagement.
- Improve discoverability.
- Promote Highlights in feed and captions to capture views from posts and Reels.
Tips to Create Better Highlights
- Choose 3-6 evergreen Stories that represent important topics.
- Add them to new Highlights with concise, keyword titles, and use strong covers and ordering.
- Revisit and refresh Highlights monthly; update outdated content and reorder so current campaigns appear first.
- Link from posts/Reels and CTAs to specific Highlights to funnel traffic there.
Tips to Make Your Stories More Engaging
Creating visually stunning Stories is essential if you want to know how to get more views on Instagram stories. Visual appeal directly affects engagement. High-quality visuals improve ad effectiveness.
Use High-Quality Visuals & Clear Text
The foundation of engaging Stories lies in crystal-clear images and videos. Grainy or poorly lit visuals are instant turn-offs for viewers.
I always ensure my photos are sharp and well-lit; natural lighting works best! I also use some of the best apps for stories that improve my stories to the next level.
For text, I choose readable fonts that contrast with the background. Importantly, I avoid placing crucial text near screen edges where it might get cut off.
When text is properly integrated into Story visuals, message comprehension increases by 20%.
Add Music, Filters, & GIFs
Music transforms ordinary Stories into memorable experiences. To add a soundtrack, tap the music note icon after recording or uploading content. Additionally, you can enhance your Stories with:
- GIFs that add personality and humor.
- Filters to establish a specific mood.
- AR effects for interactive elements.
Consequently, these creative touches make your content more captivating and shareable.
Keep Stories Short & to The Point
Attention spans are brief on Instagram. Therefore, you should break complex information into digestible parts. Each video segment remains concise and focused. Moreover, you should avoid information overload by limiting text to a single image.
This approach maintains viewer interest and prevents them from tapping away. Research shows that shorter, more focused content significantly boosts retention and engagement.
Final Words
Instagram Stories are an effective method to reach out to your audience, incorporating user-friendly features (polls and quizzes), so it’s no wonder that influencers want to learn how to get more views on Instagram Stories.
Good visuals and readable text attract more people to view the stories, and tiny, frequent experiments will let you know what really works for your followers.
Make the views be of use by posing direct questions, employing the link stickers, and selling the closeness through offering the exclusives by Close Friends in order to raise the engagement and conversions.
Implement two or three tactics right away, continue with the testing, and your view and engagement rates will get better gradually as you perfect your routine.
FAQs
Why are my Instagram Story views so low?
Low views are most of the time the result of low follower engagement that can be caused by factors such as not posting consistently, posting everything at once, or using the same feed content in Stories. Also, ghost followers/bots and overly salesy posts can damage your reach.
How can I make an Instagram Story go viral?
Use trending music or sounds, join the latest challenges, make your stories attractive and your videos brief, and write catchy captions with the most relevant hashtags. Also, keep posting regularly and respond to comments instantly.
How often should I post Stories each day?
Quality over quantity, commonly 1-5 Story frames that are well-spaced throughout the day represent a decent balance; try not to throw out long heaps of Storie.