What Kinds of Instagram Stories Should Wine Brands Make?
Your quick-start guide to Stories that your audience will actually want to watch
Last week, I told you why I think Instagram Stories are the shit.
(TL;DR: they’re low-pressure, high-impact, and a veritable playground for engagement.)
This week, let’s talk about what kinds of Stories wine brands should be posting.
I have three main ways of coming up with Stories ideas for my clients:
Stories I want to save as Highlights at the top of my profile;
Ideas I want to test out before committing to them as feed posts, and;
What is going on right now that needs to be shared in the moment?
What Stories Do I Want to Save as Highlights?
Even though stories need only last 24 hours (that's one of the reasons they are so great!), there are some stories that you may want to live on a little longer. Determining what Stories topics should be saved as Highlights is simple: what items do you have on your website's menu?
Some easy Highlight ideas:
Visit Us: Show your tasting room experiences, hours, and booking info.
Wine Club: Share how to join, benefits, and maybe even a welcome message.
Events: Share some upcoming events (and include a link sticker to purchase tickets)
Tip: Set a reminder to audit your Highlights once a month. Make sure everything is up to date (especially pricing, event dates, and hours).
What Content Do I Want to Test Before Posting to My Feed?
Stories are the perfect low-pressure place to test ideas before committing to them in a post or ad. Sometimes, when I have an idea for a post but I'm not sure how it will be received, or if it's worth its own feed post or Reel, I will share it to my Stories first.
Examples you could try:
Tasting notes videos for current releases
Food and wine pairing ideas
Giving tips on wine storage, entertaining, and tasting
Educating on wine production or terminology
Literally asking your audience (using the question box or poll stickers) what kind of content they want to see
Tip: Pay attention to which Stories get replies, DMs, or poll clicks. That’s content worth expanding into Reels, Carousels, or Ads later.
What’s Happening Right Now?
The original intention of stories was to show people what's going on right now. In fact, Jesse Driftwood often jokes about how the folks at Instagram got a little cheesed off at how much effort he was putting into his daily Instagram stories when they were first released (seriously, go watch some of his old story highlights; they are so insane, I love them so much). So, they are a great place to show behind-the-scenes things or updates.
Some ideas:
Behind-the-scenes at the winery, vineyard, bottling, etc. (which you can save to highlights later!)
Live Story-ing (official term) events like pick-up parties, winemaker dinners, etc
Flash promotions like limited weekend-only discounts
Tip: Don’t overthink “polishing” your Stories unless you’re like Jesse Driftwood and are into that kind of thing. Real, quick, even slightly messy content often performs better than over-produced stuff here!
Your Action Item for This Week:
Write down at least one Story idea under each of the three categories above:
One Highlight idea
One Content-testing idea
One In-the-Moment idea
Then challenge yourself to post at least one of them this week!
Next week, we will take this even further by learning how to turn your ideas into Stories that will keep people engaged (don’t worry; I have another super easy formula for you to follow!)
Don’t Forget to Join the Stories Challenge!
At the end of this month, I am hosting an Instagram Stories Challenge specifically for wineries!
The goal is to help you post 3–5 Story slides per day, five days a week, throughout the month of 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.
P.S. To my Paid Subscribers, I am working on building out some extras for those of you who want to participate in the Stories Challenge. Let me know if there’s something in particular you’d like to see as a Paid Member Perk!