As one of the fastest growing social networks, Instagram has a lot of marketers’ attention. The popularity of its Stories feature, launched nearly two years ago, is still growing and the platform reports that Stories have succeeded both in keeping users longer and keeping them coming back. Here are a few of the best tools for making Stories work for business.

1.) Insta Feedback Instagram launched a polling feature last year that allows users to add interactive polls to their Stories. These offer a way to get the audience engaged and hear their thoughts on your topic of choice.

2.) Add A Geosticker Instagram Stories is rolling out location-based geostickers. Early location options are limited but more are coming online and adding multiple locations is allowed.

3.) Fonts, Colors and Pen Tips Variety of new options makes it possible to create a look that’s more distinctive. While it’s still not likely to make the brand standards police in the office happy, it can get closer and allow your stories to stand out visually.

4.) Sorta-Instant Option Users can fudge on the “instant” aspect of the platform and pull in photos, Boomerangs, and short videos from a camera roll. Images taken in the last 24 hours can be accessed, used and, when posted, look the same as those posted in the moment.

5.) Extended Life To extend the reach of live videos, users can choose the “share” option that appears after the video ends. This allows the Story to replay for an extra 24 hours so that friends who didn’t catch it in the moment can watch there.

6.) Link It One of the best tools Instagram Stories offers businesses is the ability to tag and link. With this feature, users (currently only those with at least 10,000 followers) can link out to websites or directly to e-commerce pages and take advantage of that instant connection.

7.) Save that Content Instagram Stories has an account setting allowing users to save all photos and videos. This means they won’t disappear after 24 hours.

Call GMS to talk about making stories work for your business.