Tutorials are a fantastic medium for content marketing. They showcase your product or service, they position you as an expert in your field, and they provide valuable content to your audience that isn’t aggressively promotional.

The genre of the tutorial video has been around for a while, but the platform of Instagram Stories presents an opportunity for something a little different. Because you can upload multiple slides at once, your IG Story tutorial doesn’t even need to be a video: it can be a collection of stills with arrows, stickers, and little animations to help the viewer move from one step to the next.

Here are four steps to creating a tutorial on Instagram Stories that will both offer real value to your followers and demonstrate your expertise to them.

Step 1: Choose a subject for your tutorial

Some products and services really lend themselves to tutorials, while for other businesses, it may take some creative thinking to come up with the right subject. Brainstorm some ideas while keeping in mind that you have two main goals here:

• To show your expertise
• To give your followers information they will value

For example, if you’re a cake decorator, you might post a simple cake decorating tutorial. If you’re a yoga instructor, perhaps offer a quick flow of postures that your followers can practice during their lunch break at work. If you sell beauty products, create a beauty tutorial using your products.

Step 2: Plan out your steps

Work out how many steps will be required to show the process and plan a different slide for each.

Your first slide should explain what it is you’re going to show your followers and display the finished product. If they don’t know what they’re going to get out of it, they’re unlikely to stick around.

Next, you should show them what materials they will need. Then start taking them step-by-step to achieving the finished product. You may want to end with a slide that encourages engagement: ask your followers how they liked the tutorial (perhaps using an interactive sticker, like the emoji slider) and to share their results with you.

Step 3: Create a slide for each step

Be flexible and creative here: some of the slides can be still photographs with stickers, arrows, and text, while others can be short videos, animations, or even Boomerangs. For video slides, you can use a third-party app like Boosted to make your Story stand out– you can customize with text and other elements that are not available using Instagram’s native Story editor.

Keep in mind that you never know whose sound will be turned off or who might be annoyed by a lot of sound or music. In many cases, it’s best to use text instructions rather than voice-overs, and either gentle music or no sound at all for the audio.

You can use the drawing feature to draw arrows, circles, and other shapes that help direct the viewer’s eye in your slide or indicate a direction of motion. You can also use emojis to help illustrate your steps, such as a scissors or knife emoji to indicate cutting or an hourglass to indicate waiting.

Here’s some Instagram Story tutorial inspiration from @EnlightPixaloop:

Step 4: Upload your slides to Instagram Stories in chronological order

This is very important! Make sure to select your slides in chronological order so they will display correctly. If one slide is in the wrong place it will be confusing for your followers and embarrassing for you, and you’ll need to delete all of them and upload them again in the right order.

Double check before you share: click through each slide in turn and make sure the order makes sense.

Once you’re sure the slides are in the right order and everything looks good, share the tutorial to your Stories.

Action Items:

1. Pick a subject for a tutorial that showcases your expertise and offers value to your followers.
2. Plan out the steps of the tutorial and decide what kind of slide will best demonstrate each step.
3. Create a slide for each step of the process.
4. Upload the slides in chronological order and share the tutorial to your Stories!