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There are over 200 Million businesses on Instagram. And, according to the platform, 90% of people on Instagram follow a business. 
Why could this be? As people are increasingly using social media to research prospective purchases, Instagram serves as an outlet for brands to creatively show their products, services, or happy customers in action.
One of the ways that brands on the app share content with audiences is through branded Instagram Stories. These Stories enable audiences to learn more about your brand and what you offer — generating interest with prospective buyers and creating trust. 
In this post, discover high-quality Instagram Story tips and tricks from businesses that effectively use the feature on the platform.

If you’ve been on Instagram for a while now, you’re probably more than familiar with its Stories feature. But if you’re new to the platform, here’s a quick explanation of Stories:
While an individual might use a Story to show photos or videos from a vacation, work, or other aspects of their daily life, brands often use this feature to highlight photo or video content about their product, brand, or a topic related to their industry. By doing this, the brand might entertain and gain awareness from Instagrammers who enjoy tapping through random Stories.
To make your content even more interesting, you can also add GIF stickers, text overlays, filters, and interactive features — like polls and quizzes — to Stories after you upload or shoot them. You can also optimize your Story by adding text overlays with relevant hashtags or by adding handles of users that are affiliated with the content.
Whether you’re new to the app or a pro, you might be wondering where to start when it comes to using this feature for your brand. You might also worry that this strategy could be expensive, time-consuming, or require graphic design skills.
The truth is, creating Instagram Stories can actually be pretty simple and fun for your social media managers. Case in point: recent HubSpot research found that 46% of marketers already leverage the feature in their marketing strategies, and 55% are planning on increasing their investment in Stories for 2022.
To help you plan your Instagram Story strategy, we’ve compiled a list of 25 brands that have mastered the app feature. Although the brands on this list are larger companies, all of them have strategies that could be easily scaled to fit the marketing budget of smaller companies.
25 Brands Using Instagram Stories
Abercrombie & Fitch
Abercrombie and Fitch, a clothing company, often uses Instagram Stories to call attention to their offers. By sharing high-quality product photos, they’re more likely to capture audience attention, spark interest, and inspire someone to make a purchase. 
In the image below, Abercombie and Fitch shares a Story featuring an exclusive online-only item and includes a “Tap To Shop” link. 
Takeaways: 
Abercrombie and Fitch stands out with its high-quality product photos, and the copy included in their stories. It doesn’t just share a picture of a product but also reminds viewers that it’s time to start shopping for the holidays and that they can quickly begin shopping for the holidays by tapping to shop.
LEGO
While LEGO commercials and other branding material might be more targeted to children, its Instagram approach is targeted to older audiences that will buy the product. These audiences could include young adults that love puzzle projects, or parents that might buy a set for their children.
LEGO’s Instagram primarily highlights works of art made with their products. While this might be interesting for younger people on Instagram, it could also be fascinating to older people who used to play with LEGOs and might want to buy them for their children.
LEGO adds to these Stories with interactive polls and quizzes. In a recent Story celebrating Harley Davidson, they showed a LEGO replica of a motorcycle and included a quiz that asked, “How many LEGO elements are in this life-size Harley?” This is a great example of how a brand can use a relevant quiz to engage people in an interesting way.

Takeaways:
LEGO’s Instagram is a great example of how a brand that sells a product primarily to one age group can adjust its content for social platforms that host audiences from other generations. While they’re still on brand and hone in on LEGO nostalgia, they do a great job of creating interactive content specifically for the young adults on the platform.
NASA
NASA leverages beautiful space imagery, pictures of cool gadgets they work with, and interesting space discovery news to create Stories that speak to science lovers. On any given day, you might see a Story about a new planet, polls related to space travel, or quick historical fun facts.
NASA’s style is surprisingly casual and easy to comprehend. Although the organization’s content discusses complex topics like space, science, and technology, its Stories do a great job at cutting to the chase by explaining what’s interesting or newsworthy in a way that’s understandable to those without science degrees.
To pull in viewers, NASA begins Stories with an interactive element or text that summarizes the topic they’ll discuss. Here are two pages they used to kick off different Story editions:

Takeaways:
NASA’s strategy of grabbing audiences with quick, understandable, and interesting information can be key on many fast-paced social media platforms where people merely glance at a post or tap quickly through a Story before moving on to the next interesting piece of content.
When it comes to their overall approach, NASA does a great job at leveraging the strong content and information it has readily available to create unique Stories about space. While some brands might need to get super creative and brainstorm Story content from scratch, NASA recognized that its photo and video content would align well with Instagram Stories.
If you’re part of a smaller brand that has highly visual products or content, you might want to prioritize visual social platforms like NASA has done. Not only will it be easier for you to leverage visual content that you’re already creating, but you’ll have a leg up on brands that aren’t as visual.
Additionally, while some people might be intimidated by scientific discussions, they might still follow NASA because the brand publishes jargon-free stories that simply explain need-to-know details about complex topics. If you have a highly technical or complicated product or service, take a page from NASA’s book and use Stories as a chance to be more accessible to your audience.
MIT Technology Review
MIT Technology Review’s Instagram content isn’t only for academics and science experts. The publication actually does a great job of creating and telling stories most of the Instagram’s audiences can understand.
One of the publication’s Instagram Story strategies involves taking long-form pieces of content and abridging them for the platform. Because MIT Tech Review is verified with over 1.1 Million followers, it’s able to include “swipe ups” in Stories. A swipe up is a CTA that says something like, “Swipe up” or “Read more.” When a viewer sees it, they can swipe their finger upward to see a page or article from the publisher’s website.
If you can include swipe ups, this tactic is both creative and might be helpful for boosting traffic to full stories. Users might read an interesting, but short, Story — like the one below about 2019 technology fails — and want to swipe up to see a full long-form article.

Takeaways:
While NASA leverages its exclusive visuals, MIT Tech Review similarly leverages its readily available editorial content. Rather than writing separate news content for Instagram Stories, they adapt pre-written articles that they think will be interesting to Instagram readers.
This abridged-content strategy could be excellent for publishers or brands that regularly blog. If a brand can’t link Stories to their website just yet, they could still create a shortened version of a blog post and alternatively include a page that says the article’s link can be found in the Instagram account’s bio.
Harvard Business Review
The Harvard Business Review often centers Stories around management, professionalism, and career-life. Like the MIT Tech Review, it uses a casual tone of voice and similarly adapts long-form content into abridged Stories. However, one key difference is that HBR is a bit more interactive.
While HBR embraces Instagram’s poll, quiz, and other interactive Story features, it also gets creative by adding its own spin on interactivity to a story. In the example before, the publication shows users a burn-out checklist which they can screenshot and check off. The story then gives you advice for what to do if you checked any of the boxes.

For readers that want to know more, they offer a swipe up to a long-form article on their website.
Takeaways:
Although the name “Harvard” can sound intimidating, the publication’s Stories are easy for any reader to follow. This is a great example of how a brand can succeed by talking directly to the young, more casual audience of Instagram.
On top of an understandable and relatable tone, interactive elements like checklists, polls, and quizzes might make readers think more deeply about a topic than they had before. This might pull them into content because they want to learn more or dive deeper into a topic they were asked to vote on.
Even if you aren’t a publisher, doing something similar could be equally as beneficial to your content.
For example, if you’re running an Instagram account for an extermination company, you might start a story with a poll saying, “Do you know where bed bugs come from?” Then, you could tell a story of where they come from, how to prevent them, and how they can call an exterminator if their preventative measures don’t work.
People might tap through after taking the poll to see if they’re right about bed bug origins or because the question made them realize how worried they are about bed bugs.
America’s Test Kitchen
Like NASA, America’s Test Kitchen, a website and video blog with recipe content, doesn’t go too far off-brand with its Instagram Stories. While many of America’s Test Kitchen’s videos on other platforms show you how to make a recipe, the brand publishes behind-the-scenes kitchen videos and shots of ingredients to amp up audiences for upcoming recipe videos.
In one Story, the Test Kitchen showed photographs and videos of bacon as chefs were testing out bacon recipes. The Story then offered up a poll that asked viewers how crispy they like their bacon.

Takeaways:
While America’s Test Kitchen’s Story strategy is perfect for food publications, it could also be helpful for restaurants as well. When someone sees a video of a restaurant’s chef cooking a new dish, it might make them crave that meal and go to the restaurant to order it. Additionally, as prospective customers see chefs cooking thoroughly and with care, they might also trust that their food will be prepared well
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston uses Instagram Stories bring its current statues and paintings to life. While you might think that looking at pictures of 17th-century art might bore you, the MFA zests things up by partnering them with funny quotes, meme references, and polls.
For example, they recently presented multiple pictures of horse-related art accompanied with lyrics from the highly-memed song, “Old Town Road.”

Takeaways:
While the MFA is known for being prestigious and academic, it uses Instagram Stories like this to show that the brand can still be both humorous and hip.
This is an example of how a brand that could’ve been considered “dry” on Instagram thought outside the box to show off their product in a whole new way. While it can be beneficial to stay on brand if you align well with a platform, some companies or organizations, like museums or national parks, might want to experiment with odd new content strategies on fast-paced platforms like Instagram.
National Geographic
Aside from Instagram’s own account, National Geographic is the most-followed brand on the platform. Like its standard photo posts, the publisher experiments with a variety of different content styles.
While NatGeo’s Stories usually highlight mini-documentaries, they also occasionally include polls or quizzes. This is a good example of how mixing things up and experimenting with different content styles can keep your audiences on the edge wondering what type of content they might see next.
Like MIT and Harvard, National Geographic also occasionally abridges long-form content in order to promote an article or video that a viewer can swipe up to. In the example screenshotted below, they promote a video that discusses the history of NASA’s Apollo mission, while tagging NASA for some added Story optimization.

The brand has also dabbled with sponsored content. In one edition, sponsored by Barbie, they told the story of a female conservation photographer. This was an interesting example of a sponsorship which allowed National Geographic to tell a beautifully shot story about nature, while aligning with Barbie’s mission to encourage female empowerment.

Takeaways:
Like MIT Tech Review and NASA, National Geographic leverages the beautiful and exclusive imagery it already has to adapt interesting on-brand content for Instagram. This allows the company to use their resources in an economic way while also promoting long-form content that goes into more detail than the Story does.
While NatGeo does a great job of adapting content, it also experiments with partner content. When even small brands partner with other companies to create content, production can be more affordable, and launching the content could help both brands gain fans from the other’s base.
YouTube Music
YouTube Music uses its Instagram account to inspire users to download the YouTube Music streaming app. By pairing high-quality visuals with audio snippets, viewers get an exciting preview of what’s to come when they download the app. 

Takeaways:
Listening to music is typically an audio-only activity, where people click play and, well, listen. YouTube Music uses Instagram Stories to take the music listening experience to the next level by sharing song snippets paired with high-quality photos of the artists, which is not something that usually goes along with listening to music. 
Audience members know that YouTube sometimes connects the song to the artist, and users may excitedly check its Stories to see if a photo is shared of their favorite artist.
Outback Steakhouse
Like America’s Test Kitchen, the restaurant chain Outback Steakhouse leverages images of delicious food and polls to engage its Instagram Story audiences.
While some Stories feel like ads by discussing promos and deals, others feel more interactive and creative.
For example, in one recent Story, users were shown multiple Outback menu items for each dinner course, then they were asked to vote on which meal they wanted for each course. At the end of the Story, Outback noted a multicourse dinner deal they were offering. This is a great way of highlighting multiple products at once without making your audiences feel overwhelmed.

Takeaways:
If you can’t think of an idea for a Story with a more traditional plot and narrative, Outback proves that you can still pull people through a series of images in a way that feels more like an interactive experience than an ad.
A variety of different brands could take on a similar strategy. For example, if you were a marketer for a shoe company could post a Story that allows people to vote on the shoe styles that they’d wear for different occasions. This type of story would allow your audiences to see and weigh in on two different styles of your products at once.
Later, when they can’t figure out which shoes they want to wear to an outing, they might remember your Story and go to your shoe outlet knowing you have a bunch of different options.
Nike
Nike’s Instagram Stories feature interviews with prominent athletes who use Nike products. During the interviews, the athletes talk about their career accomplishments, rather than focusing on Nike products.
In the example below, soccer player Alex Morgan told the story about how she realized she wanted a different career path than her sister.

Although this has nothing to do with shoes, the content aims to motivate athletes who might want to purchase shoes worn by other successful people in the sporting industry.
Takeaways:
Leveraging relevant influencers, like Nike, allows you to create content that aligns with your brand without purely focusing on your product.
People might watch these Stories to learn more about the famous athletes being interviewed. Then, they might trust Nike’s brand more because these successful athletes also trust its products.
While a small company might not be able to hire or film a famous athlete or influencer, they could still experiment with a similar strategy by interviewing smaller influencers or experts within their industry.
For example, if a gym owner wants to gain more clients, they could interview a local athlete about their goals, accomplishments, and what motivates them. People interested in the local athlete might watch the video to learn more about the person, but then consider a gym membership if they want to have similar athletic accomplishments.
Black Girl Sunscreen
Black Girl Sunscreen is a beauty brand that sells sun safety products. It uses its Instagram to share high-quality product photos, share influencer collaborations, and educate audiences on the importance of sun safety and using its products. 
In Stories, Black Girl Sunscreen often shares user-generated content of audiences using its products and relevant brand announcements, like the Cyber Monday announcement shown in the image below. 

Takeaways:
A great way to keep users engaged on your profile is to share exciting content with them, especially when it comes to upcoming deals. People want to know when they’ll have access to deals for their favorite products, so sharing these announcements on Instagram Stories is a valuable strategy.
Airbnb
Stories are a major part of the travel company’s Instagram strategy. In fact, they have a few different styles of Stories. For example, which gives short profiles of Airbnb customers is called “Experiences, while another — called “Adventures” combines curated and Airbnb-recorded content to show documentaries of unique vacations around the world.
Here’s an example of one of Airbnb’s experience pieces which centers around a customer who regularly stays in Brooklyn. Aside from explaining what the customer does, Airbnb also uses polls and quizzes related to her job to get people interested in the history she researches:

While Airbnb creates a lot of high-quality video and animated content for its stories, they also don’t shy away from sharing high definition customer videos while crediting and tagging them.
Here’s another screenshot from one of the brand’s Adventure Stories where they included videos of an Airbnb customer swimming with sharks and credited them with their account handle:

Takeaways:
One of the best ways to gain brand trust is by telling or presenting stories from happy customers. Airbnb’s Instagram team recognizes this and centers its storytelling strategy around that.
While they film and present their own beautiful footage and documentaries, they also are wise to share user-curated videos and images — a great opportunity to show its fans how pleased customers were with their trips.
Although this customer experience strategy works well for Airbnb, it could work for a variety of other companies, especially if they are still building up their customer base or selling a disruptive product that no one’s used before.
For example, if a new ride-share company had a few happy customers but wanted to boost its marketing strategy, it might create Stories where customers talk about interesting places that their shared ride brought them to, or maybe they’d discuss an interesting driver they met on a long ride. They could earn trust when prospective customers see how happy and safe customers felt when using the ride-share service.
Starbucks
Starbucks uses Stories to share customer testimonies, new product launches, and other interactive content. Although a lot of the brand’s content revolves around its drinks, the Stories don’t feel like advertisements because they embrace fun facts and interactive polls and quizzes.
In one example, Starbucks asks viewers to guess which drink is coming back. It then shares the best answers and reveals the S’mores Frap and image. To add some extra interactivity, viewers can vote on what type of S’mores Frap they prefer and guess how many s’mores are shown in a video.

Takeaways:
Even if they center specifically around a product rather than a narrative or plotline, Stories like these can still be fun from beginning to end. Starbucks does a great job of using interactive features to engage viewers.
By offering open ended questions and quizzes, they might engage with people who don’t like a specific beverage, but want to guess anyway. With the polls, they can gain similar engagement, while also possibly learning more about what drinks and flavors their audience prefers.
Telfar
Telfar is a luxury fashion brand well known for its bags. Like many other brands on the list, it uses Instagram to share new product announcements, user-generated content, and high-quality product photos. 
In the image below, Telfar uses Stories to share info about an upcoming event. 

Takeaways:
People spend a significant amount of time on social media per day, so announcing events on Instagram Stories is a valuable strategy. You’re likely to reach your audiences where they spend a significant amount of time, and they’ll be excited by the opportunity to participate in an event for your business.
Instagram
Yes. Obviously Instagram is excellent at posting Stories on its own platform. But, even though the brand is giant, they still rely on their fanbase for most of the content.
Almost all of Instagram’s Stories are filled with photos or videos submitted by users. This allows Instagram to show off some of the most beautiful imagery and the most interesting videos on the platform. Because they tag and credit users who submitted content, they also give those accounts some great promotion. This, in turn, makes Instagram look like they care about their community and how people are using the app.
Here’s a screenshot from a motivational story created by an Instagram user:

Takeaways:
Whether you’re marketing a small business or large business, you always want to be picking “low hanging fruit.” For those that don’t know this common startup saying, it means that if you see a huge opportunity in front of you, you should grab it. Just like you would grab a delicious-looking apple that was hanging low to the ground off of a tall tree.
By sourcing and republishing interesting content from some of its most engaging users, Instagram grabs its low hanging fruit and makes a delicious juice out of it.
Odds are, you’re not Instagram’s size — and you probably don’t have your own thriving social platform to pull content from. But, this doesn’t mean you can’t curate content from your customers in a more scalable way.
Like Airbnb, Instagram benefits greatly from highlighting content that was already created by its fans. If you’re a small business that regularly gets some type of content from your customers or fans, you can create a sense of trust and community by sharing it and acknowledging those individuals.
For example, if you run marketing for a clothing outlet and keep getting pictures of people wearing the dresses it sells, you could make a Story that shows photos from customers who wore those outfits to different outings. Like Instagram, you could tag those customers so they or their followers might see the Story.
In another scenario, say you’re running a local art studio. You might want to publish a Story that includes photos, sculptures, and paintings from your students. This allows your students to feel like you care about their success and want to share it, while also showing prospective students how much they could learn if they took your classes.
Sephora
Sephora is an international retailer for beauty products and personal care items. With more than 20 million followers, audiences turn to their accounts to view educational content about the products they sell, collaborations with influencers, and unique images and videos about products. 
The images below show that the brand shares informational content about its rewards program and upcoming offers on Instagram Stories. 

Takeaways:
Sephora’s Beauty Insider Rewards program is well known, as people can exchange points from purchases to receive free items. Sephora uses Instagram stories to show users what products they can expect to have access to with a certain number of points, generating excitement among users and inspiring them to make purchases to receive their free items. 
NBA
The NBA regularly posts behind-the-scenes styled Instagram Stories which might highlight post-game celebrations, interviews, and other off-the-court happenings.
For example, a recent Story followed the Toronto Raptors parade in Ontario, Canada and showed clips of players with family members and posing for photo ops with the Canadian rapper, Drake.

Takeaways:
When you show the people behind a company or brand, it makes it feel more relatable or trustworthy. With the NBA, we often see players looking serious and tough as they play basketball. But, when you see them off the court, you realize that they’re human, just like you.
Although someone might not be a sports fan, they might still watch behind-the-scenes stories like this to learn more about the faces behind the brand or to get insight on how the world of sports works.
In other industries, people might also respond well to behind-the-scenes video. For example, if you’re marketing for a school or gym where professors and trainers might seem intimidating to prospects, showing Instagram Stories that follow them in their daily lives might make prospects less apprehensive about signing up for a course or membership.
Wayfair
Wayfair, an online furniture and home-decor company, publishes Stories that fall into five home-related categories: Wall Art Wednesday, #WayfairAtHome, Home Renos, Multifunctional, and Design Services.
When you visit its account page, instead of featuring multiple individual stories, they show you icons for each category. Once you click in, you’ll see multiple Stories that relate to each group.

Regardless of which category the Story falls into, Wayfair is always creatively weaving product shots into it in either a humorous or creative way.
Here’s a screenshot from a Story where the brand uses humor to show off wall art:

In another example, they give valuable tips for home renovation that acknowledge Wayfair products:

Wayfair includes a “See more.” swipe up call to action in every page of its Stories which allows viewers to swipe directly to a product immediately after its shown.
Takeaways:
If you’re working at an ecommerce company, or want to highlight and sell products quickly, Wayfair’s strategy could be beneficial. These Stories allow possible customers to see products in action and used in real-life scenarios, which might make them want to make a purchase.
If you can’t link your website to your Story, you could alternatively stick a product line link in your Instagram bio, then create a Story highlighting products that will be shown on that webpage. At the end of it, rather than including a linked call to action, you could direct viewers to your bio.
If you end up creating a bunch of Stories that fit into just a few categories, you might also want to consider presenting them as featured Stories like Wayfair does on its profile. That way, if someone is interested in one product category over another, they’ll know where to click to see relevant content.
Caffe Nero
The New England-based Italian coffee chain, Caffe Nero, uses its Instagram Stories to highlight new products, menu items, and it’s baristas. Recently, the company posted a Story about its “Barista of the Year” competition and award which highlighted the winner as well as eight baristas who were named as finalists.

Takeaways:
Whether you’re marketing for a local business or a chain, Stories can be a helpful way to highlight unique aspects of your brand — especially devoted and friendly staff.
By highlighting nine highly-skilled baristas and showing an award ceremony, Caffe Nero shows prospective customers that its employees are pleasant, want to help customers, are good at making coffee, and enjoy their jobs. It also makes Caffe Nero look like a brand that cares about both its staff and good customer experiences.
If someone has to pick between a huge restaurant chain with unhappy staff and a smaller chain with staff that cares about customer happiness, odds are, they’ll probably choose the second option because their experience might be smoother and more pleasant.
New York University
NYU’s Stories center around topics that you might see in a student newspaper. In any given story edition, you might find student profiles, historical fun facts about NYU, graduation speeches, and university-related newsbites.
In one Story, published on Valentine’s Day, NYU discussed alumni who fell in love:

In the same Story, they also highlighted instances of sibling students

And just recently, NYU published footage of its Pride Parade:

Takeaways:
Because Gen-Z and millennials flock to Instagram, this type of student-friendly content seems very well targeted. While many in Gen-Z are starting to enroll in college programs, some millennials might still be thinking about getting a first or second degree.
When prospective students are preparing to make a huge investment in college, they want to choose a school that cares about its students. With the strategy of telling interesting student stories and covering campus events, NYU gives possible students an idea of what going to the school might be like. These Stories might also show them how fun and diverse NYU could be.
If you’re part of a business that requires students or customers to pay large annual fees, one great way of showing them it’s worth it is by highlighting current customers or students. Emotionally, prospects might connect with people in their situation who are happy with a big investment that they made.
While this strategy works well for colleges and universities, it might also benefit other programs, such as a networking organization. For example, if you’re trying to market a group where members pay to attend networking events, workshops, or other career training, you might post Stories that talk about members who found jobs after joining, or use the platform to show videos of current members at an interesting networking workshop.
Planet Fitness
Planet Fitness leverages its diverse customer base by promoting gym triumphs in its Instagram Stories. Its featured Story includes one customer triumph or success story on each page with teaser language encouraging viewers to swipe up to the Planet Fitness website.

The best thing about this Story is that it shows successes from a wide range of people. While you might see a highlight about an athlete preparing for a marathon one day, you’ll also regularly see moms going to the gym, friends working out together, or other testimonials about customer milestones.
Takeaways:
Planet Fitness continues to define itself as a “judgement-free zone” by showing realistic accomplishments by every-day people. Those who want to go to the gym might see these stories and feel like Planet Fitness is a realistic and welcoming place for them to start working out.
Every-day person success Stories can be a great way to lighten up your brand image if you think prospects are too nervous to come to you. Aside from gyms, this could be an approach for other businesses or brands that might be intimidating to customers.
For example, because people can get nervous around lawyers, a law firm might want to use Stories to post video testimonials from clients who won their court cases with help from the organization. In another scenario, a nutritionist might have patients volunteer to talk about their wellness success. 
The Jimmy Fund
The non-profit organization which raises money for cancer research and treatments regularly keeps Instagram followers up to date with the projects its funding, cancer-survivor testimonials, and updates on its annual 5K Fun Runs.
Although cancer is a tough topic, The Jimmy Fund’s Stories are optimistic and promote the charity’s successes.
In one Story, the organization toured a state of the art cancer treatment center that they had helped fund:

In another, a cancer survivor gives five tips for living with the disease:

Takeaways:
If you’re a marketer for an organization that asks for donations or funding, you might already know that you’ll need to gain trust from your following in order to get the money you need. One of the best ways to show that someone’s donation will be put to good use is to promote how the funds are effectively being used to help others.
By using the Stories feature to present funded projects, like new cancer treatment centers, viewers can literally see what their money could go toward.
If you’re just getting a philanthropic organization or fund off of the ground, another way to earn trust could be by creating content that is valuable to the group you’re trying to help.
For example, along with noting what the charity has been funding, The Jimmy Fund also posts advice for cancer patients and cancer survivors. While those living with cancer can benefit from this, those who aren’t will see that the organization genuinely cares about the group it says it supports.
Lowe’s
The home-improvement store uses a variety of different story styles to show off its products. While most are created by Lowe’s, other [1]stories are curated from customers.
In one curated story, viewers can watch a woman refloor her bathroom with tiles she bought at Lowe’s:

In a story created by Lowe’s, the brand takes a similar approach as Outback Steakhouse by allowing viewers to vote on which type of paint color they preferred in a specific room:

Takeaways:
While home-improvement might be nerve-wracking to someone who hasn’t done it before, Lowe’s uses colorful imagery and creative stories to show how fun and creative it can be. Because Lowe’s shows its own tools in these stories, novices who don’t want to be overwhelmed by product choices might just buy the exact same supplies so they can replicate what they’ve already seen.
If your company offers DIY products, whether they relate to home-making, cooking, art, or other activities, showing them in action can be a really great way to encourage purchases. How-tos and demonstrations can excite prospective customers and show them how easy it can be to do a home project. Because of this, they might run straight to your store to buy similar supplies or ask your staff to show them other products for another DIY project.
Tips for Creating an Instagram Story
If this list has inspired you to create a branded Instagram Story, here are a few key takeaways to remember as you begin to brainstorm your first edition.

Identify and leverage content that might already align well with the platform. Do you have great customers that you can interview on camera? Or photos or videos of your product or service in action? While you’ll still want to adapt imagery or Story lengths to fit the platform, don’t be afraid to publish Stories with curated or pre-created content that you think will engage Instagrammers and prospective customers.

Create content specifically for the platform’s audience. Whether you’re adapting content or creating it from scratch, make sure you’re posting about topics that younger and more-visual Instagram audiences will engage with.

Use interactive features like questions, polls, and quizzes. These add depth to a story and might enable users to think about each topic more seriously.

Keep stories quick and to the point. Don’t overwhelm your audiences with too much text or too many pages. This might cause them to tap out of your story.

Add a swipe up if you can. These can be a great way to gain traffic through Instagram. Don’t have the swipe up feature yet? Here’s how you can get it.

Stories can be a great way to add some unique and engaging content to your Instagram strategy. If you’re ready to make one, but feel overwhelmed by all the app’s features, leverage the strategies used by the brands on this list — your audience will surely enjoy it. 

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It’s very easy to spot good leadership when it happens.
Take, for instance, how an old manager of mine used to ask my advice on business strategy in our weekly 1:1s — and then provide constructive feedback on it.
While I might not have recognized it at the time, I now see he was teaching me to think about how my role fit into the company’s bigger mission.
Or, consider how my current manager seeks out learning and development opportunities for each of her direct reports. Whenever she finds a workshop or online class that could help me grow, she passes along the information.
All of which is to say: Good leadership doesn’t look, sound, or act just one way. There are a myriad of ways for a good leader to educate and inspire others.
Which means leadership is a harder skill to master than others. It isn’t like mastering Excel, which requires knowledge of specific, fixed formulas. Instead, good leadership is more ambiguous, and mastering it is less of a linear path. There will be setbacks, and moments where you feel you didn’t act as a good leader should. But there will also be incremental moments of true growth.
Whether you’re an individual contributor or already a team lead, there’s always room for improvement. Here, we’ll cover leadership development on various levels — from individual contributor to senior management and above. Plus, hear leadership tips from Google, LinkedIn, Monday.com, and HubSpot.
We’ll also explore how to achieve your career goals through actionable steps you can take to level-up and become a stronger, more effective leader.
Let’s begin.

What is a leader?
Before we dive into how to become a leader, it’s important we cover what a leader is.
At its most basic definition, a leader is someone who leads a group of people towards a common goal through inspiration, motivation, and strong vision setting.
For instance, a teacher leads her students towards the goal of learning and uses motivation and inspiration to help them reach that goal.
The motivation and inspiration aspects are key. A leader isn’t just someone who barks orders and hopes people obey. Instead, an effective leader is highly emotionally intelligent and connects with his or her direct reports to create stronger relationships before driving the group towards change.
Additionally, a good leader is someone who is effective at big-picture strategizing, and equally adept at communicating that vision to the rest of the team.
If you’re still unsure what a leader is, here are a few quotes from leaders who’ve defined the term for themselves:

“As a business leader, I think of myself as a coach. It’s my responsibility to build a strong team, design a winning strategy and execute the strategy with excellence to bring the team to victory.” — Thasunda Duckett, President and CEO of TIAA
“Ensuring that people have everything they need to achieve the missions of an organization. That’s it, all else is footnotes.” — Hans Vestburg, CEO, Verizon Communications
“Leadership is helping believe in a better tomorrow or a better outcome than you have today.”  — Marissa Mayer, Former CEO, Yahoo!
“Leadership is helping people succeed, inspiring and uniting people behind a common purpose and then being accountable.” — Paul Polman, Former CEO, Unilever
“A leader is someone who can think strategically, simplify the strategy so everyone in the organization can understand it and communicate that strategy simply, enthusiastically, and in a caring way.” — Ajay Banga, CEO, MasterCard

Now that we’ve covered a more broad, basic definition, let’s explore some skills, traits, and qualities of good leadership to understand the definition on a more actionable level.

The Skills, Traits, & Qualities of Good Leadership
Good leadership looks different for every leader. Some leaders are quiet and calm; others are rambunctious and extroverted. There isn’t a specific personality that lends itself best to effective leadership. And that’s a good thing — at its core, leadership is about leading people, and people are diverse, so you want your leadership teams to reflect that diversity.
However, there are a few specific skills, traits, and qualities that have been identified as strong indicators of good leadership.
A few high-level leadership skills include:

High emotional intelligence
A growth mindset
Strong communication skills
Reliability
Ability to give and receive feedback
Decisiveness

To learn more about leadership skills (and how to improve them), take a look at What Are Leadership Skills? [+ How To Get Them].
For now, let’s explore which skills are most relevant for various leadership roles.
Leadership as an Individual Contributor
You don’t have to manage a team to be a leader. Instead, many individual contributors are strong leaders who need to develop leadership skills to manage projects or outcomes.
As an individual contributor, it is oftentimes your responsibility to have influence across the organization to drive projects across the finish line. This includes having the confidence to convince stakeholders that what you’re doing matters to the organization, and that you’re the best leader for the job.
Some of the most critical skills of an individual contributor include strong communication skills, time management skills, ability to work autonomously, and ability to collaborate effectively.
Here are a few specific examples of how individual contributors might need to demonstrate leadership skills:

A social media marketer spearheading a new campaign across channels.
A website designer who is in charge of re-designing the new company homepage.
A blogger who notices a gap in an existing editorial strategy and wants to pitch a new topic cluster to leadership.
A product marketer who needs to work with various teams to drive traffic and leads to a new product launch.

All of these employees need strong leadership skills — including the ability to empathize, remain flexible, listen actively to other team’s agendas, and communicate their own vision effectively — and yet, none of them lead a team in a traditional sense.
To develop leadership skills as an individual contributor:
Learn to seek out feedback from the employees with which you work. Once one project is complete, ask them to complete a survey that requests information related to your time management skills, communication skills, or collaboration skills.
Leadership as a Manager
Once you’re a manager, developing leadership skills becomes more a practice of trial-and-error.
To develop or strengthen key leadership skills, you’ll want to request regular feedback from each of your direct reports, as well as your manager, to determine areas for improvement. Ask clear, actionable questions such as, ‘What is one thing you’d like me to start doing? (Specific examples are helpful)’ and ‘What is one thing you’d like me to stop doing? (Specific examples are helpful)’.
Additionally, take the time to reflect on situations to determine how you might shift your behavior moving forward. Good leaders are the first to admit their mistakes.
For instance, if you’re managing an entry-level employee and recognize you didn’t give her enough context or support before suggesting she meet with her first client, you’ll want to reflect and decide how you’ll change moving forward.
Then, in your 1:1, you can tell her: “I apologize for pushing you into a client situation without ensuring you had all the context and information you needed to succeed. Moving forward, I’ve altered our team training schedule to ensure employees have more time to find their footing before meeting with a client.”
Finally, as you move into a manager role, take the time to identify your management style. Understanding your management style can help you uncover inherent strengths (and weaknesses), and expand upon those.
To develop leadership skills as a manager:
Ask your direct reports for candid, honest feedback. Reflect on situations and iterate on your behaviors over time. Finally, identify your management style and be self-aware about your areas for improvement.
Leadership as a Senior Manager and Above
When you become a senior manager, your job shifts significantly — because you’re now leading a team of managers.  
To be effective as a senior manager, you’ll want to ensure you know how to ask the right questions. In skip level meetings, for instance, you might be speaking with employees who feel intimidated and hesitant to point out issues they’re seeing on the ground-level — but their perspective is invaluable for spotting weaknesses within the organization.
Skip level meetings can also help you determine which areas your direct reports might need coaching, as well as patterns of challenges and inefficiencies across the team.
As a senior manager, it’s also your responsibility to identify and nurture future leaders. Seek out opportunities to coach and mentor lower level leaders to ensure your organization is prepped with leaders who can drive positive change.
Finally, a senior leader is someone who motivates and inspires the department at-large with visions of the future of the company — two, five, and even ten years out. She is someone who is able to clearly articulate where she sees the business, and industry, headed, to create a sense of purpose among employees.
To foster this skill as a senior manager, you’ll want to be intentional about staying up-to-date with the competitive landscape and consistently making note of existing customer pain points and how your company might reduce friction and stay relevant in the years to come.
To learn more about this, take a look at How to Set & Achieve Marketing Objectives in 2021.
To develop leadership skills as a senior manager or above:
Practice the art of active listening and asking the right questions to discover weaknesses and gaps in your organization. Keep up-to-date with the competitive landscape. Find mentors or senior manager peers who will provide you with leadership feedback, and attend conferences or seminars to network with other industry leaders.

How to Achieve Your Leadership Career Goals
1. Identify your leadership style, and know your strengths and weaknesses.
Leadership isn’t one-size, fits-all. So when you first decide you want to become a leader, it’s vital you take the time to determine what type of leader you want to be.
If you’ve never been in a leadership position before, you can start by taking a leadership style assessment to determine your style.
Alternatively, if you have been a leader in a previous position (even informally), take a look at The 8 Most Common Leadership Styles & How to Find Your Own [Quiz] to see which style you feel you fit most accurately.
For instance, let’s say you’ve determined you fit a ‘Coach-Style Leadership’ style. Coach-Style leaders are focused on identifying and nurturing individual strengths of each team member.
Since Coach-Style leaders focus on growth and success of individual employees, it’s vital you’re efficient at communication and relationship-building.
Alternatively, if you felt better suited for a ‘Strategic Leadership’ style, you’d want to hone skills related to strategic, big-picture thinking.
Once you’ve figured out your leadership style, it becomes easier to identify areas for improvement and areas of potential weakness.
To create a more comprehensive list, take the time to make a list of your strengths and weaknesses (and collect external feedback as well) — this can help you determine, with your manager, which areas of growth will be most necessary before you can earn a leadership position.
2. Seek out opportunities to become a role model or mentor.
To become a leader, you’ll need to vocalize to your manager that you want to become one. Then, he or she can help you identify opportunities to begin practicing leadership informally.
Alternatively, try seeking out those opportunities for yourself. There are a myriad of ways to test out your leadership skills. Perhaps you sign up to become a mentor to a new employee, or grab coffee once a week with a new team member to provide guidance and support.
Outside of work, you can look for areas in your community to become a leader. For instance, you could volunteer as a mentor for a local high school.
3. Develop your communication skills.
A core tenant of strong leadership is good communication skills.
Leadership requires you to communicate constantly with various stakeholders, effectively sell them on your goals or vision, and create rapport to build trust among your team.
In a given day, a leader might go from a meeting with executives in which she needs to communicate the resourcing needs of her team, to a meeting with individual contributors where she needs to build trust, inspire, and motivate.
 All of which is to say: Good leadership and strong communication skills go hand-in-hand.
To develop stronger communication skills, you’ll want to start by practicing your active listening skills, learning how to assert your opinion in a helpful way, and asking for feedback from others on your existing communication skills. You might also seek out public speaking opportunities to strengthen your public speaking skills.
Empathy and emotional intelligence are equally critical to communicating effectively, and can help you build stronger relationships with colleagues.
For instance, let’s say a colleague comes to you with a problem. She expresses that she’s been overwhelmed and, as a result, won’t be able to meet the deadline you’d initially agreed upon for a project.
While you might be frustrated or even angry initially, empathy can enable you to put yourself in her shoes, and understand that missing deadlines can happen to all of us. Additionally, emotional intelligence can help you monitor your own emotions and react appropriately.
As a result of having empathy and high emotional intelligence, you might respond like this: “Thanks for letting me know, and I’m sorry to hear you’ve been feeling overwhelmed. We’ve all been there. Give me some time to think over how we can come up with a solution to ensure we don’t get behind on the project as a whole.”
Rather than reacting purely based on personal feelings, emotional intelligence ensures you have the skills to keep your emotions in-check and respond to situations in positive, effective ways.
4. Ask big picture questions and learn to think about strategy.
When asked, “What skills are vital to being a good leader?”, over ⅓ of HubSpot survey respondents reported ‘ability to think strategically and to think about the big picture’. That skill alone won out over communication skills, decision-making skills, and interpersonal skills.
Thinking strategically doesn’t happen overnight. When you’re in a role that requires you to be focused on ground level details, it can be difficult to suddenly pull back and analyze bigger trends, challenges, and solutions — but it’s vital for any leader to be able to do so.
Here are a few ways you can begin exercising that ‘strategic thinking’ muscle:

Ask more big picture questions in meetings, even if it’s not directly tied to your role. For instance, if you’re a social media marketer and you’re required to post Instagram stories for an upcoming product launch, you might explore questions such as, ‘Why did our executive team choose to focus on investing in development for this product in particular?’ ‘How will this product expand our value proposition?’ and ‘What narrative are we telling around this product and how it fits into our existing product stack?’

Expand your network outside of your immediate team. Grab lunches with members of the sales or services organization, and take the time to speak with those outside of your team. This will help you begin to understand what’s happening in other areas of the organization, what other teams are working on, and challenges other teams are facing.

Get organized with how you spend your time. While your day-to-day tasks are important, it’s equally vital you carve out intentional time to focus on bigger projects or professional development opportunities. To do this, you might block off one hour every other week to focus on personal brainstorming — during this time, you might write down a list of higher-visibility projects you’ve been wanting to test out, or seek out workshops and courses in your area that will help you develop skills that your team currently lacks.

Be willing to speak up. Beyond asking question in meetings, practice feeling comfortable sharing your own perspective or opinion. Show your colleagues you’re willing to communicate new ideas or get creative when it comes to existing strategies.

Research Credit: Lucid
5. Take on more responsibility.
To begin levelling up in your career, you’ll need to seek out additional opportunities to expand your skillset and demonstrate your willingness to grow professionally.
The easiest way to do this is to have an honest conversation with your manager in which you ask where the team’s needs are, and how you can help your team meet those needs. Alternatively, perhaps you’ve observed a weak spot on your team and you feel confident you know how to fix it — in that case, you might bring your proposal to your manager.
It’s vital you have buy-in from your manager since taking on more responsibility outside of your existing role could look unprofessional if your manager doesn’t know why you’re adding tasks to your plate.
If you’re interested in becoming a team manager, for instance, you might tell your manager: “I noticed we’re hiring a summer intern. If we don’t already have a plan in-place, I’m wondering if I could become the intern’s mentor or manager for the summer to strengthen some of my leadership skills?”
6. Go where the needs are.
I received this advice early in my career after I’d pitched a lengthy project to my manager. The pitch was strong — except my solution didn’t solve a big problem, it solved a small one.
My manager said, “It looks like you created this pitch with your own personal interests top-of-mind. While it’s always great if your passions can match business need, first and foremost, you need to work from the perspective of, ‘What will help our business the most?’”
She had a point. After some reflection, I realized our team didn’t need infographics designed for blog posts as much as the team needed more SEO knowledge and input. Rather than looking for design courses, I pivoted and signed up for a workshop on SEO. It was less interesting (personally), but it impacted our business on a broader scale.
Effective leaders don’t just suggest random ideas when it suits them. Instead, they start by asking the right questions and analyzing existing weak spots. Then, they work to fill in those gaps and create real change for their organizations.
7. Practice self-awareness.
Self-awareness is an incredibly vital skill for any leader.
For instance, leaders who can see how their employees view them are usually more effective, and have stronger relationships with their employees. Additionally, self-awareness can help you correctly identify what you do well, and which areas you can potentially improve.
But if you think you’re already a master in self-awareness, think again. One study estimates only 10-15% of people are truly self-aware. And, even if you are self-aware, there is always opportunities to strengthen the skill.
In this context of developing leadership skills, self-awareness can help you:

Assess your current relationships with your colleagues, and how you might improve it. (Example: You recognize you were dismissive of another colleague’s ideas in a recent meeting, and she’s been avoiding you since. With that self-awareness, you can apologize for your behavior and practice more open-mindedness moving forward.)

Analyze your own internal thought patterns, and recognize which ones aren’t serving you, to build confidence. (Example: You feel imposter syndrome every time you present to your team, and you’re self-aware enough to know it’s because you’re constantly thinking, ‘I don’t deserve to be here’. As a result, you work on self-affirmation, and create a folder on your desktop of positive reinforcements from colleagues.)

Figure out which skills you lack that you’ll need to develop before moving into a leadership role. (Example: After some reflection, you realize you aren’t often honest about your mistakes, which can make you seem untrustworthy. As a result, you put effort into admitting when you’ve failed to your manager or team.)

8. Take the time for quiet reflection.
Becoming an effective leader doesn’t happen overnight. And, unfortunately, there’s no ‘end’ to becoming a good leader. For your entire leadership journey, you’ll continuously iterate and grow.
When setbacks and failure happens, it’s important you become adept at reflection. As you put these leadership tips into practice, take the time to regularly assess how you’re doing. Leadership is trial-and-error, and as you practice new behaviors to grow your leadership skills, you’ll want to determine which feel most authentic to you.
Ultimately, good leadership doesn’t mean mirroring what others have done. It means figuring out what works for your personality and style, and expanding on those innate qualities. Since authentic leadership is the single strongest predictor of an employee’s job satisfaction, it’s imperative you take the time to grow into a leader in the way that’s right for you.

Why Goal Setting Is a Critical Component of Good Leadership
As you move into a leadership role, you might feel pulled in many different directions by stakeholders with different goals.
This is why setting goals is vital for leading a team successfully: It keeps you focused on what matters for your team.
When you create goals for your team, you’re effectively prioritizing what you will say yes (and no) to over a given period. Additionally, you’re ensuring your team clearly knows where they’re headed and how to get there — an essential component of good leadership.
Here are a few other reasons goal setting is a critical component of good leadership:

Goal setting helps you enable your employees to work more autonomously. If they know what results you’re expecting from them, it doesn’t necessarily matter when, where, or how they reach those.

Goal setting helps you stay focused on what matters most for your business. It ensures you don’t get distracted with quick wins, and instead remain fixated on long-term success.

Goal setting can spark more engagement from employees. If your employees understand the purpose and long-term vision behind their daily tasks, they’ll likely feel more motivated.

Goal setting increases a team’s creativity and collaboration. Once you’ve decided where your team is headed, you don’t necessarily need to dictate how to get there. Instead, empower your employees to brainstorm and test out interesting strategies to drive the team forward towards that goal. It’s more interesting — and likely more effective — to gather unique perspectives when driving towards a common goal.

It helps you know when to say no. When your employees come to you with interesting projects or experiments, it can be tempting to say yes. By setting clear team goals, you’re ensuring each team member uses their time intentionally in pursuit of that goal alone.

When setting goals, consider using a SMART framework to ensure your goals are clear, actionable, and specific.
The Eisenhower Matrix can also help you figure out which tasks are highest priority once you’ve determined your team’s short and long-term goals. The Eisenhower Matrix enables you to categorize your tasks in order of urgency and importance.

Now that we’ve covered goal setting as a vital component of leadership, let’s explore a few other critical factors according to Google, LinkedIn, Monday.com, and HubSpot.

What Makes an Effective Leader? Tips from Google, LinkedIn, Monday.com, and HubSpot
1. Effective leadership is humbling. 
Anders Mortensen, Google’s Managing Director of Channel Partners, says effective leadership is humbling. 
He told me, “In my early years of leadership, I was focused on the what — the results — while my team was focused on the how. It took me six years to realize that you don’t define your leadership success, it’s defined by others, and the how matters more than the what.”
Mortensen adds that he believes your definition of team will either limit leaders, or elevate them.

“To become an effective leader,” Mortensen says, “you have to make people around you better. Success is collaborative and your definition of ‘team’ will either limit you, or elevate you.”

“The broader you define ‘team’, the more holistically you’ll lead, and you’ll become the bridge-builder that solves for the entire company, versus optimizing for just your own.”
Ultimately, being a good leader means more than delivering exceptional results. It also means consistently motivating and supporting your team — through the highs, but also through the lows. 

2. Effective leaders show compassion and encourage authenticity.
Alyssa Merwin, Vice President of LinkedIn Sales Solutions, told me compassion is a key characteristic of effective leaders.
As Merwin puts it, “For many reasons, employees may struggle to show up as their full selves at work, creating barriers for them to be successful in certain parts of their roles. Whether because of caregiving responsibilities, mental health concerns, being part of an underrepresented group, or any other number of factors that make them feel different from the broader group, employees may experience increased stress of showing up to their desks — or Zoom, these days — on top of the pressure to perform in their roles.”
Employees desire the opportunity to show up as their authentic selves at work, which is a critical factor for long-term employee satisfaction and engagement. 
Merwin says, “To truly support their teams, it’s imperative that leaders not only recognize that these challenges may exist for some team members, but that they also commit to integrating diversity, inclusion, and belonging into their day-to-day operations.”
“Creating and enabling great cultures and welcoming environments is just the starting point,” Merwin adds.

“Effective leaders focus on how each individual team member is feeling and showing up to work, and they facilitate safe spaces for open discussion about how team members can better support one another.”

3. An effective leader is someone who walks side-by-side with their team. 
Effective leaders are able to provide strong, actionable support and guidance for their team. 
As Hila Levy-Loya, VP of Customer Success at monday.com, told me, “Being an effective leader is about choosing to walk side-by-side with your team — not forging ahead and looking back to check where they are.”
Being able to walk side-by-side, Levy-Loya adds, requires you to take the time to have deeper conversations with your team and understand their daily activities. “The first step in achieving this is to take the time to understand the details of your team’s work and what keeps them up at night. Get to know their day-to-day responsibilities and stresses, and in turn you will become trusted to lead an informed discussion with your team.”

Along with discussing your team’s responsibilities, you’ll want to remain transparent about the bigger picture — including your long-term vision and goals. 
Levy-Loya says, “The second step is granting your team access into your motivations so they can understand your ‘zoomed out’ view just as you do. Sharing the good, the bad, and the unknown creates an environment of trust and transparency that is crucial to achieving incredible results. With that ability to tap into each others perspectives, you and your team are able to pave the way together.”
4. An effective leader always assumes good intent.
Lisa Toner, HubSpot’s Director of Content Network, told me effective leaders always assume good intent, even when a team member makes a mistake. 
As she puts it, “No one sets out to make a bad decision or mistake. When it happens, they’re likely going to be more upset about it than you are, so no matter how frustrated you are, approach the issue with empathy, and calmly and supportively lead your team member towards a better outcome.”

“Always assume good intent,” Toner adds. “Reacting negatively will only knock their confidence in themselves — and you — in the long run.”

Ultimately, good leadership doesn’t happen overnight. To become an effective leader, you’ll want to consistently request honest, candid feedback from your direct reports, and practice self-awareness to recognize — and improve — your leadership weaknesses. 
Fortunately, your direct reports don’t expect you to be perfect; they expect you to be human. Be humble, admit when you don’t know, and collaborate with your team to leverage each person’s expertise — all of which will bring you that much closer to truly leading effectively. 

 

 

In order to radically enhance your experience with our system, we redesigned its interface from the ground up. To start, we prepared pioneer Human Interface guidelines, inspired by the latest design trends for the most intuitive operational systems. Accurate execution of the design principles led us to elevate User Experience to the level till this day unreachable by any SaaS software.

The goal we set for ourselves was to remove every obstacle between the human intention and the system action to create and evoke a perfect flow.  We reached a remarkable 60% increase in speed of operations and reduced the clicks by 33%.  

In this article, we summarize all the changes and explain our inspirations. Enjoy!

 

User-driven revolution in SaaS – Human Interface

 

The constant development of end-to-end platforms demands a new approach to design principles. We already made the most out of the classic SaaS interface. To deliver a truly revolutionary, user-driven experience, we decided to:

Design the interface from the ground up instead of developing the existing one.
Completely discard the classic SaaS design philosophy which we see as insufficient for modern CDP.
Seek inspiration in the most intuitive and seamless interfaces, even for non-professionals – operational systems like Windows or macOS.

In consequence, we achieved the effects unparalleled in SaaS programs:

Speed. Because fewer operations are needed to get to the desired feature, the new menu allows you to navigate through the system up to 60% faster, more intuitively, and with ⅓ fewer clicks, 

Seamlessness. Users who know operational systems from their daily routines will recognize the design immediately and will know how to navigate it.

Personalization. As in the case of the operational systems, users now can customize the interface according to their needs. 

Agility. There are now many ways to get to any of SALESmanago’s 650+ features & solutions, according to the user’s preferences and customs.

We designed a navigation system so friendly, seamless and fast, that we named it simply Human Interface.

 

Menu Anatomy

 

Intuitive navigation and hotkeys

 

New menu is now easily accessible with a large, green button in the left upper corner of the screen. You can also use A hotkey to access the menu (more on shortcuts later).

 

 

Navigation in the menu is now a breeze. Just hover the cursor over the chosen position, and the whole feature tree will appear. You can go straight to the needed functionality with just one click, even if it is located on the secondary list in the menu!

 

 

Another innovation is the introduction of hotkeys, which further improve the navigation within the application. Use Shift+? to highlight all available shortcuts.

 

 

Favourite features at Your fingertips

 

Quick links are a set of most frequently used features accessible instantly from the top bar. They allow you to jump to selected feature from any place in the system with one click. You can fully customize the set, the order of links, and the icons’ look to suit your needs.

 

 

To set up your own array of Quick Links click on the Manage button.

 

 

Then, choose a desired feature from the drop-down menu. As a Quick Link, you can select any feature, and then customize its icon. Then click the Save button on the Quick Link bar. Your new link has been added to the bar. 

 

 

You can pick up to 15 Quick Links. To delete existing items, click the minus icon next to the selected Quick Link.

 

 Contextual menus

 

Contextual menus, or breadcrumbs, display located horizontally below the top bar with quick links. This is a permanently visible support menu that allows you to smoothly move between features of each module. They change dynamically according to your location in the system to reflect the structure of features in each module. 

 

 

Your workplace, your colors

 

Adjust the color of each item in the menu according to your taste. Change the colors of fonts, icons, tiles, and backgrounds at will. You can change colors for groups of elements (i.e. all tiles, all icons) as well as individual items on tiles (different icon color or background color on a selected tile).

 

 

Zero click human-system communication

 

The new menu contains two search boxes. The first search box is located in the menu. It allows you to quickly find all necessary features and their subsections.

This way the experienced users, knowing what they are looking for, are now able to get straight to the desired feature from any place in the system. No clicks at all.

The second search box is located in the top bar. It allows you to quickly find a contact in your Contacts list.

 

 

Summarizing new, friendly ecosystem for operations

 

Re-shape your CDP & Marketing Automation experience with a redesigned menu navigation and an innovative approach to information architecture that provides quick access to all 650+ features & solutions
Save time thanks to simplified navigation inside the application: reduced by 1/3 the number of clicks and time cut by 60% to reach all system features
Benefit from a number of improvements, based on the latest usability trends, that will grant you fast and seamless navigation through the system 
Compose your own list of quick links, so you can access the most frequently used features directly from any place within the application, without opening the main menu
Use customizable hotkeys to smoothly access your favorite features in a split second
Enjoy bespoke user experience by fully tailoring the design and quick links selection to your needs so you can access the most important and frequently used features in no time 

 

Standard CDPs navigation and SALESmanago CDP’s new Human Interface

 

 

 

 

In order to radically enhance your experience with our system, we redesigned its interface from the ground up. To start, we prepared pioneer Human Interface guidelines, inspired by the latest design trends for the most intuitive operational systems. Accurate execution of the design principles led us to elevate User Experience to the level till this day unreachable by any SaaS software.

The goal we set for ourselves was to remove every obstacle between the human intention and the system action to create and evoke a perfect flow.  We reached a remarkable 60% increase in speed of operations and reduced the clicks by 33%.  

In this article, we summarize all the changes and explain our inspirations. Enjoy!

 

User-driven revolution in SaaS – Human Interface

 

The constant development of end-to-end platforms demands a new approach to design principles. We already made the most out of the classic SaaS interface. To deliver a truly revolutionary, user-driven experience, we decided to:

Design the interface from the ground up instead of developing the existing one.
Completely discard the classic SaaS design philosophy which we see as insufficient for modern CDP.
Seek inspiration in the most intuitive and seamless interfaces, even for non-professionals – operational systems like Windows or macOS.

In consequence, we achieved the effects unparalleled in SaaS programs:

Speed. Because fewer operations are needed to get to the desired feature, the new menu allows you to navigate through the system up to 60% faster, more intuitively, and with ⅓ fewer clicks, 

Seamlessness. Users who know operational systems from their daily routines will recognize the design immediately and will know how to navigate it.

Personalization. As in the case of the operational systems, users now can customize the interface according to their needs. 

Agility. There are now many ways to get to any of SALESmanago’s 650+ features & solutions, according to the user’s preferences and customs.

We designed a navigation system so friendly, seamless and fast, that we named it simply Human Interface.

 

Menu Anatomy

 

Intuitive navigation and hotkeys

 

New menu is now easily accessible with a large, green button in the left upper corner of the screen. You can also use A hotkey to access the menu (more on shortcuts later).

 

 

Navigation in the menu is now a breeze. Just hover the cursor over the chosen position, and the whole feature tree will appear. You can go straight to the needed functionality with just one click, even if it is located on the secondary list in the menu!

 

 

Another innovation is the introduction of hotkeys, which further improve the navigation within the application. Use Shift+? to highlight all available shortcuts.

 

 

Favourite features at Your fingertips

 

Quick links are a set of most frequently used features accessible instantly from the top bar. They allow you to jump to selected feature from any place in the system with one click. You can fully customize the set, the order of links, and the icons’ look to suit your needs.

 

 

To set up your own array of Quick Links click on the Manage button.

 

 

Then, choose a desired feature from the drop-down menu. As a Quick Link, you can select any feature, and then customize its icon. Then click the Save button on the Quick Link bar. Your new link has been added to the bar. 

 

 

You can pick up to 15 Quick Links. To delete existing items, click the minus icon next to the selected Quick Link.

 

 Contextual menus

 

Contextual menus, or breadcrumbs, display located horizontally below the top bar with quick links. This is a permanently visible support menu that allows you to smoothly move between features of each module. They change dynamically according to your location in the system to reflect the structure of features in each module. 

 

 

Your workplace, your colors

 

Adjust the color of each item in the menu according to your taste. Change the colors of fonts, icons, tiles, and backgrounds at will. You can change colors for groups of elements (i.e. all tiles, all icons) as well as individual items on tiles (different icon color or background color on a selected tile).

 

 

Zero click human-system communication

 

The new menu contains two search boxes. The first search box is located in the menu. It allows you to quickly find all necessary features and their subsections.

This way the experienced users, knowing what they are looking for, are now able to get straight to the desired feature from any place in the system. No clicks at all.

The second search box is located in the top bar. It allows you to quickly find a contact in your Contacts list.

 

 

Summarizing new, friendly ecosystem for operations

 

Re-shape your CDP & Marketing Automation experience with a redesigned menu navigation and an innovative approach to information architecture that provides quick access to all 650+ features & solutions
Save time thanks to simplified navigation inside the application: reduced by 1/3 the number of clicks and time cut by 60% to reach all system features
Benefit from a number of improvements, based on the latest usability trends, that will grant you fast and seamless navigation through the system 
Compose your own list of quick links, so you can access the most frequently used features directly from any place within the application, without opening the main menu
Use customizable hotkeys to smoothly access your favorite features in a split second
Enjoy bespoke user experience by fully tailoring the design and quick links selection to your needs so you can access the most important and frequently used features in no time 

 

Standard CDPs navigation and SALESmanago CDP’s new Human Interface