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What are Instagram stories?
With over a billion users and 40 billion uploaded photos, Instagram is arguably the most popular social media platform among the Millenials. Like that of Snapchat, one feature of Instagram is the “story” – a photo or a clip or a live video that you can edit, add filters, stickers or text and share on Instagram, which lasts only for 24 hours.
Why do you need a good Instagram story?
500 million users post stories every day. Clearly, since the launch of this feature, stories have become the primary way of sharing information on Instagram. It’s also easier for people to access Instagram stories because they appear at the top of the news feed without having to scroll down.
The popularity of stories is true not only for users who share personal photos but also for e-commerce stores, private businesses and the like. 36% of businesses use Instagram Stories for product promotion, and 59% of brands link Instagram Stories to a shoppable page.
Hopefully, by now, you are surely convinced that Instagram stories are a powerful way to communicate information to your followers, friends or customers. Here are a few tips and tricks to make sure your story has a powerful impact.
7 ways to make Instagram stories like a pro
1. Make use of story templates
Instagram story templates are pre-designed layouts with graphics, animation, text etc. that you can edit to match your story content. Templates are especially useful when you are trying to promote a business or brand – you can design a template that’s characteristic of your brand and use that for all your stories. Even otherwise, using a template saves you a lot of time that you would have used to make the design.
Personalise the template as much as you want – custom font, colour etc. Once the design strikes a chord with the viewers, they will start to associate more with the brand, giving you a better outreach as well.
2. Make a slideshow or montage
When you have multiple photos (which may be related), you can make a picture slideshow or a GIF or a montage, which tends to hold a person’s attention more than a single photo. Making a slideshow also gives a flow to the story elements, and the transition effects that you can add between pictures make the viewing experience better.
There are several apps that let you make GIFs or picture slideshows. These apps would generally have options to edit photos as you add them, change aspect ratios, and so on. InVideo’s picture slideshow maker is a great tool that lets you make attractive slideshows, not just for Instagram, of course.
3. Keep the time limit in mind
Each Instagram story lasts for 15 seconds before automatically moving on to the next story you have shared. If you want to show many photos, you can make a slideshow so that you can cover several photos in one story.
If you have a long video, you can use video editing apps that help you make smaller 15-second clips and share them as stories. One challenge here is that you need to ensure your viewers watch all the 15-second clips and not get bored without finishing the entire video. You can hold their attention using stickers, polls and other story elements discussed below.
4. Add suitable text and other story elements
Instagram offers you a plethora of add-ons to your images and videos that are tools to hold the viewer’s attention for longer. Text captions can tell the viewers what exactly they are seeing, relevant links can give more information to the viewers, additional audio in the form of voice-overs or background music can be effective (60% of all stories are watched with the sound on), and stickers give a funky look to the story.
5. Go crazy with colours!
Whether it’s text or background or anything else, you get to choose the colour. If one of the default colours doesn’t match your needs, open stories and choose the brush tool; you get a palette at the bottom, from which you can select the right colour by a long-press.
Here’s another cool hack if you want to give a gradient of colours. Select the text you want to colour and open the entire colour spectrum. Keep one finger on the palette and one on the text, and drag both towards the left of your screen simultaneously, and the text now has a gradient effect!
Instagram’s geotags and hashtags make your content more relatable to a select group of people. If you want people to know you have visited a certain place or shop or restaurant (or just any particular latitude and longitude), you can add a geotag to your story that. This also makes your story pop up when people search for stories with a particular geotag.
Hashtags also work in a similar fashion, but you can make any set of characters as a hashtag and not necessarily a geographical location. With specific and captivating hashtags, your story becomes more eye-catching and has a better outreach.
7. Interact with the viewers
Instagram stories can contain stickers which help you interact with the viewers and not just display your pictures or clips. Polls are one type of interactive stickers, where you can ask the audience a question and give them options to select. This gives you an insight into the audience’s mindset about a certain opinion, product, feature etc.
Another type of interactive sticker lets the audience ask you a question (select the “Questions” sticker). You can find the questions by checking your story views, and you can reply to whichever question you choose.
Your Instagram story is now ready!
With these tips and tricks and your creativity to fuel the content, you should now have a very appealing Instagram story! Whether it is to promote a product for your business or to share reunion photos with your friend circles, you can make your stories have an impact on your viewers.
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