How to tell a story on Instagram Stories
They are called Stories for a reason
Last week, you came up with some killer ideas for the kinds of Stories you can be posting for your brand. This week, we’re talking about how to actually tell a Story in Stories because, yes, even the unhinged shenanigans we get up to on this channel can still benefit from a little structure.
And don’t worry, it’s super easy!
Know Your "Three P's"
Before you even think about story structure, though, you need to answer three questions and understand what I call the "Three P's of Marketing":
People: Who are you making the Story for? (Who are you trying to help?)
Problem: What problem are they facing?
Purpose: How does your product, service, or experience solve that problem?
Once you know who you’re speaking to and how you’re helping them, structuring the “plot” becomes a lot easier.
The Basic Story Structure for Instagram
Every good story has a beginning, middle, and end. In book and movie speak, this looks like: inciting incident → rising action → climax → resolution. But this is how I've adapted that three-act structure for marketing on social media:
1. Attention Grabber:
Your first slide needs to hook your viewer immediately. This is often where you introduce (or hint at) the problem you're solving.
2. Body to Lend Context:
The middle slides add narrative and context. They should start solving the problem you introduced on Slide 1. Think “rising action” in a book: you're giving your audience a reason to keep watching.
3. Call to Action:
You want to give your audience a way to complete the story loop you opened in slide one. Now, this doesn't necessarily need to be a direct call to a sale; this could be as simple as inserting a slider sticker or a quiz sticker. But sometimes, it is an invitation to buy, book, or learn more.
Here is an example for a wine brand
Scenario:
Audience: Non-Wine Club Members
Problem: Wine shopping is overwhelming and inconvenient.
Purpose: Get more people to join the wine club and make their lives easier.
Story Structure:
Slide 1 (Attention Grabber): Wine Club Manager talking to camera:
"Between trying to figure out what wine to choose and not knowing if it’ll even be good, buying wine at the store can be a frustrating gamble."Slide 2 (Context): Wine Club Manager continues:
"But joining [Awesome Winery]’s Wine Club means never getting bamboozled by a bad bottle again!"Slide 3 (Details): Graphic listing core benefits:
"$150/quarter = four bottles of hand-selected wine delivered to your door in March, May, October, and December."Slide 4 (More Details): Graphic or quick voiceover:
"Plus: 2 complimentary tastings 6x per year, invites to members-only events, and access to exclusive wine releases."Slide 5 (Call to Action): Wine Club Manager to camera:
"Ready to make life easier (and tastier)? DM us or click the link to join!"
Bonus Storytelling Tip (Visuals Edition!)
Whenever you’re out doing what you do best, I want you to capture three videos or photos of the same scene/situation but at different focal lengths (distances): A wide shot, a medium shot, and a close up/detail shot. If we are using something like pruning as an example, those three shots could look something like this:
Wide View (at the block level): showing the whole crew pruning.
Medium view (of a single person): showing a single person pruning.
Close-up view (or detail shot): showing, say, hands pruning.
Here’s how this would look in practice:
If you want or need more slides, you can double up on the different focal lengths but at different angles. For your second medium shot, you could try getting a photo or video of the person pruning from the front or the back and getting another detail shot, this time of the pruned vine leaking sap or of the person’s hands from above or below.
These shots need only take around five minutes to capture every single day.
Your Action Item
This week, pick one of the Story ideas you came up with last week.
Walk it through the Three P’s (People, Problem, Purpose).
Map out the five slides (or less if needed) using the structure above.
Capture the visuals for it using the storytelling tips above
Reminder:
I’m launching an Instagram Stories Challenge in June to help you get consistent with posting to stories!
The goal is to post 3–5 Story slides per day, five days a week throughout June and (hopefully) double your Story views by the end of it!
I'll give you prompts, reminders, encouragement, and a bunch of tactical tips to make it easier (and way more fun) to show up consistently. If you’d like to opt-in, be sure to follow me on Instagram @craftandcluster and opt-in to my Instagram Stories Challenge Broadcast Channel.
*Note: By opting into the Broadcast Channel, you agree to receive DMs from me regularly (between 1 and 5 times per week). You can opt-out at any time, but I encourage you to stay on the broadcast channel throughout the challenge so you can get tips and support.