Instagram Strategy: 4 Benefits of Instagram Live

Instagram has the highest engagement of any social media platform, but saturation has created major problems for post reach. This means that if you’re using Instagram for your social strategy (and you want to be successful), you need to stay competitive on the platform. How do you stay competitive? By staying up to date with its features.

Since Instagram introduced Instagram Stories back in 2016, the feature has been adopted by 400 million daily users. Instagram Live is a helpful element of the feature that has some definite benefits. Interestingly enough, it’s still a feature that isn’t getting much use. Below, we dive into the 4 top reasons to use Instagram Live.

4 Benefits of Instagram Live

1. Visibility

Did you know  around 70% of Instagram posts, don’t even get seen?  That’s a lot of wasted effort, especially since you’re investing money into your strategy. Stories help combat this issue by placing your content at the top of your followers feeds, but Instagram Live takes it a step further. When you go live on Instagram, your stream shows up in the same place as a story, only Instagram Live has a few special privileges.

Instagram Live streams are placed at the front of the storyline, which gives you a pretty solid chance of getting views. Instagram Live streams are also highlighted, which increases interest and draw to watch. Finally, Instagram Live is push notification enabled. This means that any follower with the feature turned on will be alerted each time you start a live stream. This significantly increases awareness and develops your potential for reach.

Instagram Live works best with a plan. If you need some inspiration,  check out some of our past work, here. 

2. Urgency

There’s a lot of evidence that people not only enjoy live content, they actually have trouble turning away. Because live content creates a sense of urgency.

This is, in part, because we experience live events collectively, which draws us into the action. Take a sports game, for example. Everyone–audience and team– is experiencing the same thing at the same time. No one knows what will happen next, which creates a sense of heightened curiosity, almost like suspense. 

This real-time, collective experience also makes live events more sticky than average content. Viewers will end up watching live content for longer for the simple fact that if they turn away, they might miss out on something important. something that everyone else saw. As a result, they become invested in what happens next. They care. 

Instagram Live stories work in the same way. Your followers can replay your Instagram live for up to 24 hours after the original stream but after that, it’s gone. Forever. So there is a real opportunity to miss out on something, permanently. 

3. Authenticity 

On that note, another reason people tend to love live content is that it’s authentic. You don’t know what will happen next, but neither do the people hosting the live stream. 

That makes it difficult to fake things like product quality, brand personality, and a whole handful of other things that millennials and Gen Z-ers tend to value.

Instagram Live breaks down the barrier between you and your audience. It gives you an opportunity to have a real conversation and interact in real-time. It creates a face-to-face experience that feels personal and genuine. Genuine means trustworthy, and trustworthy is a great thing.

Authenticity is extremely important since there’s evidence that it directly affects revenue. A study by Sprout Social found that consumers value business transparency, a lot. So much so that brands who lack transparency on social media cause 86% of consumers to turn to a competitor. 

4. Engagement 

Instagram Stories tend to generate more engagement than Instagram posts because they lead to conversation. Users DM, rather than simply “like” which opens a new lane of connectivity. Instagram Live opens even more potential for conversation. You can ask viewers questions, give a behind the scenes look into your business, let viewers direct the action of the stream… you name it. Most importantly, it’s a two-way interaction. You can respond to your audience because it’s happening in real-time. 

Another feature that makes Instagram Live particularly engaging, is that its long form. Regular Instagram Stories can only be 60 seconds in length, while Instagram Live can extend to a full hour. This gives you a lot more options to choose from, content-wise, and decreases your chance of drop off. 

1 in 3 consumers  said they’ve become interested in a brand or product after seeing it in an Instagram Story.