How do instagram stories work
What are Instagram Stories and how do they work?
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(Pocket-lint) - Instagram Stories allow you to share multiple videos and photos taken throughout the day, complete with overlays of doodles and stickers, like Snapchat Stories. This slideshow reel of photos and videos will disappear after 24 hours, allowing you to share moments of your day without having to keep them on your Instagram Profile.
If you want to repopulate your Instagram story reel, just take more videos and photos and continue to broadcast them. You can also add an Intsgram Story as a highlight if you want them to remain on your profile for longer than the 24 hours.
Here's everything you need to know about Instagram Stories.
How does Instagram Stories work?
Here's a basic run down of how Instagram Stories work, but we have a full Instagram Stories tips and tricks that will give you a more detailed overview if there is something specfic you want to know how to do.
Posting
Tap the "+" button in the top right of your screen and tap on "Story" in the bottom right, or swipe right from anywhere in your Instagram Feed.
Then, tap or long press the record button at the bottom to take a photo or video, respectively. You can also tap Boomerang in the tool bar on the left to take burst photos that loop forward or backward, or tap the arrow on the tool bar to select the hands-free mode, as well as find other features, such as Superzoom.
- What is Instagram Superzoom and how does it work?
Once done, tap the doodle, text, or sticker icons at the top of your screen to add effects. Stickers can include location information, polls and songs.
Once you're finished editing, you can save your creation to your phone or tap the "Send to" in the bottom right of your screen to share it to your story. Photos and videos you share to your story disappear from the feed and your profile after 24 hours.
Hide your story from someone
If you don't want someone to see your story, you can hide your story from them.
Just tap the profile icon in the bottom right of the Instagram app to access your profile > Tap the three lines in the top right > Settings > Privacy > Story > Hide Story From > Select the people you'd like to hide your story from.
Viewing
When you post a photo or video to your story, it appears on your profile (a colourful ring will appear around your profile picture, and people can tap it to see your story) and at the top of the Instagram feed (your profile picture will appear in a row at the top of your followers' feeds, and they can tap it to see your story).
Stories shared publicly may also appear in the Search & Explore tabs.
Additionally, if you've added a hashtag, location, or location-based sticker, it may also appear on hashtag or location pages.
Replying
You can reply to stories with a message reply or a quick reply emoji by tapping on the "Send Message" box at the bottom of the story you are watching.
Your friend will get your response in their Direct message inbox, along with the thumbnail of the original story.
What else can Instagram Stories do?
- Add effects: Like Snapchat, you can add doodles, text, stickers, live face filters, and geostickers to your story.
- Add music: There's also the ability to add songs directly to your Stories.
- See who's watching your story: When watching your own story, swipe up to see who's watched each photo and video.
- Make your story private: If your account is set to private, your story will only be visible to your followers. You can also hide your entire story from anyone you don't want to see it, even if they follow you.
- Post your story to your profile: Your Instagram Story by default won't appear on your profile grid or in feed, but you can choose to feature a particular part of your story by posting it on your profile or you can add it as a Highlight.
Want to know more?
Instagram's Help Center has several step-by-step guides that explain everything you need to know.
- Instagram Help Center
You can also check out Instagram's blog post for more details
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The Complete Guide to Creating Standout Stories
There are currently over 500 million people creating and watching Instagram Stories on their mobile devices every day. And one in three people has said they become more interested in brands and products after seeing stories about those brands that feature those products. In short, IG Stories boost your reach and engagement and, in some cases, influence purchasing behavior.
Instagram Stories help you connect and engage with your target audience in an authentic way to build relationships that increase customer loyalty.
In fact, the Instagram Story feature was built to help brands share quick photos and videos with their followers to highlight what makes them unique. Plus, Stories give your audience a small peek into what goes on behind the scenes—and followers love that.
💡
Schedule your Instagram posts, carousels, stories, and reels with Buffer
Visually plan your content calendar and make your profile a "must-follow" with Buffer's suite of Instagram scheduling and analytics tools.
What is an Instagram Story?
An Instagram Story is an in-app feature that allows users to post photos or videos that automatically disappear within 24 hours. They appear in a vertical format and are fast, memorable, and fun by design.
When you post a Story, a colorful ring appears around your profile picture, telling your followers they can tap on your profile photo to see what you’ve just posted. Your profile picture with the colorful ring around it also gets added to the top row of your followers’ home screens—making it the first thing they see.
IG stories are a perfect way for brands to experiment with different kinds of content because, unlike your permanent curated feed, Stories disappear in 24 hours. Small business owners use their stories to post everything, from unedited videos of their everyday lives to photos of their new products and short clips of them answering FAQs. Brands also use their Stories to show customer appreciation by re-sharing their followers’ stories and posts in their own Stories.
How to post a Story on Instagram
Now that you know what a Story is, it's time to get into how you can post your own. You can create and post a Story in three easy steps.
Step 1: Go to your home page and swipe left from any point on the screen to open the Instagram camera application.
You can also get to the Instagram camera by tapping the “plus” button found at the top right-hand corner of your screen and then tapping “Story.”
Step 2: Within the camera application, you can choose to either create brand new content for your story by tapping the white circle at the bottom-middle portion of the screen or upload photo or video content you’ve previously created by tapping the album icon on the lower-left portion of your screen. If you choose to upload an existing photo, take note that Instagram Story dimensions are 1080px by 1920px. If you choose to create new content on the spot, you can create different types of stories:
- Standard. A regular photo or video.
- Text Create. A photo with text on a solid background. Accounts usually use Text Stories to pose a question, tell a story, or create mini-blogs within their Instagram Stories.
- Boomerang. A really short video that plays forward and backward on a loop.
- Layout. A collage of different photos.
- Photobooth. Four continuous shots that get stitched together into one Story.
- Multi-capture. A Story made up of multiple photos taken in quick succession.
- Level. A photo or video that’s perfectly level, according to Instagram, usually for Stories featuring landscapes and horizons.
Step 3: Once you’ve created your story, you can add stickers and filters to it, draw on it, add text to it, and more. You can even mention or tag people or engage your followers through polls, quizzes, and other fun features.
If you want to create Stories even faster, you can create your content ahead of time in bulk and schedule those stories with Buffer’s planning and scheduling application. Buffer's Story tools will show you what your story is going to look like when it's live and let you schedule it ahead of time.
What are IG Story Highlights?
Instagram Story Highlights are collections of Stories that you curate, and they’re located at the top of your profile in the form of tappable circles.
They were introduced in 2017 as a way for users to keep their favorite or most relevant Stories around for more than 24 hours.
Story Highlights appear directly below your bio, so they are one of the first things your followers see when they go onto your profile. Brands have used their Highlights to present important information (e.g., restaurant menus, product lists, etc.) upfront. Highlights are also a great way to keep testimonials on your account. When you re-share customers’ Stories about how happy they are with your product, instead of letting those testimonials disappear, save them in a Highlight Bubble.
Alongside Highlights, Instagram also introduced the Story Archive. After your Story disappears from your profile, it is automatically stored in your Story Archive, which only you can access within your settings. From the Archive, you can save your expired Stories to your device, rewatch them, or add them to a Story Highlight.
To create an Instagram Highlight, you need to:
- Go to your profile page by tapping your profile photo located at the lower-right corner of your screen.
- Tap the “New” circle located right underneath your bio to the left.
- Choose some Stories from your Archive and then tap the “Next” button on the top-right corner of your screen.
- Give your Highlight a name.
- Optional: Edit your Highlight cover by either uploading a premade cover from your device’s album or selecting a different Story for your cover.
Once you’re done, your Instagram Highlight will appear as a bubble on your profile. You can have as many Highlights as you like, and they will stay on your profile until you remove them. To edit or remove a Highlight, just tap and hold that Highlight on your profile.
Instagram Story Features that Boost Engagement
Instagram Stories are so powerful because they build loyalty and increase engagement by humanizing your brand. Your followers probably already love your brand—sharing true, relatable, or interesting stories through a series of Insta Stories will encourage them to keep coming back to your account and interacting with your content (which eventually leads to conversions).
Instagram has made it even easier for brands to harness the power of Stories and create engaging content with the following features:
Instagram Story Stickers
Instagram Story Stickers are cartoons, gifs, or text you can place over your Stories to make them more engaging and interactive. You can use Stickers to add some text to your videos to tell a story or add a poll to a photo of your new products to ask your followers which ones they're most excited about.
There are different kinds of Instagram Story Stickers—Both Shelly Clouds and Awesome Maps are using the Poll Sticker to gauge their audience’s preferences.To add stickers to your story, take or upload a photo or video and then tap the Stickers button (a smiley face on the top right of the screen) to find customizable stickers for the weather, the current time, location, and more. You can move Stickers by dragging them across your screen and resizing them by pinching or expanding them with two fingers.
Instagram has also launched new types of stickers—like the Shop Sticker and Captions Sticker—to make it easier for Instagrammers with professional and business accounts to increase accessibility and engage their Story viewers. Here are some of our favorite stickers for small business owners:
1. Add Yours Sticker
[source]
Instagram’s Add Yours Sticker was released in November 2021. It allows creators to make public threads to connect content with a similar theme. When more users add their Story to the sticker, it creates a content chain.
The main goal of the Add Yours Sticker is to encourage collaboration between users. It also helps brands become discovered: if you click the sticker in someone’s Story, Instagram will show you everyone who has contributed to a thread.
2. Stories Captions Sticker
[source]
Instagram introduced the Stories Captions Sticker to increase the accessibility of their platform. You can add automated text captions to your stories by simply adding this sticker.
It is currently only available in English-speaking countries, but Instagram plans to roll it out across different languages soon.
3. Shopping Sticker
[source]
If you have Instagram Shopping set up for your business account, you can use the Shopping Sticker to add clickable product icons to your Story.
4. Support Small Businesses Sticker
The Support Small Business Sticker allows personal, professional, and business accounts to tag small businesses in their Stories through a clickable icon that also shows a preview of the small business’s account.
5. Donation Sticker
[source] Parents together uses its Instagram Stories to encourage donations for their fundraising drive.The Donation Sticker is an interactive sticker accounts use to encourage donations to a specific cause. People who tap the Donation Sticker can donate within Instagram to the linked cause.
6. Quiz Sticker
The Quiz Sticker lets you add an interactive, multiple-choice-type question to your Stories so you can ask your followers fun questions and see which ones get the right answer.
7. Question Sticker
The Question Sticker has a blank that lets your followers answer a question you pose. It can help you gather some insights on what your customers love, what they're interested in, what they'd like to see, and more.
8. Poll Sticker
The Poll Sticker lets your followers choose between two options you can customize: yes or no, A or B, basketball or soccer, 😃or 😭.
Some other fun stickers you can use are:
- Location Sticker - tag your location
- Music Sticker - add a song
- Hashtag Sticker - create a brand moment
- Time and/or Weather Sticker - add to personalize your content
- Gif Sticker - adds an interactive element
- Mention Sticker - tag a user account
The Instagram Story Link Sticker replaces swipe up
On October 27, 2021, the Story Link Sticker officially replaced the swipe-up feature.
This sticker makes links highly visible, and they can be placed anywhere on your Story.
The switch from swipe up to a sticker was good news for content marketers and small business owners since it meant you no longer needed 10k followers to link to a website.
In a statement, Instagram shared their reasoning behind the change, saying:
“We made this decision based on feedback we heard from the community about how impactful it would be for creators and businesses of all sizes to benefit from link sharing to grow in the same way larger accounts do.”
How to add a Link Sticker to your story:
- Go to your Instagram Stories sticker tray and tap the sticker that reads “link.”
- Paste your link into the link field.
- If you have a long or unwieldy URL, tap the “Customize sticker text” button to type in any text you’d like.
- Change the color of your sticker by tapping on it.
IG Stories Analytics
If your account is a professional or business account, you can access Instagram analytics. Your profile analytics and Stories analytics are different, but both contain important data that can help you create more of the content your followers love.
[source] These are Story analytics from a marketing coach, Elise Darma.You can access your IG stories analytics by tapping the “seen by” icon on the lower-left corner of your story post. From your analytics, you will see:
- How many Instagrammers your Story has reached
- How people interacted with your Story (i.e., tap next, finish the story, go back, tap a sticker, exit)
- How many Instagram Story views you received
- How many people followed you after viewing that Story
You can find out which pieces of content are the most engaging based on Instagram’s Story analytics. If you need more in-depth information, you can check out Buffer’s Story analytics dashboard.
A winning Instagram Story strategy for your business
Spontaneously creating Instagram Stories and sharing snippets of your life with your followers is a great way to build engagement and start learning about the feature, but to really grow with IG Stories, you need a solid strategy.
On average, social media campaigns on Instagram see about a 20% increase in reach when Stories are involved. Use the Instagram algorithm to your advantage by using Stories to drive interactions with your followers. Little changes, like frequency of posting, using in-app features, and posting at certain times of the day, will help your algorithmic ranking.
1. Post between one to seven Stories each day
Our research says to post one to seven Stories per day, but Instagram says two Stories per day is ideal to foster growth on the app. So you might need to experiment to find out what works for your brand.
However, our research says keeping a high completion rate (over 70 percent) means posting anywhere between one and seven stories per day.
Completion rate is determined by calculating the number of times your Stories were watched from the first Story frame all the way to the last Story frame within the given 24-hour time period.
This means that if you post between one to seven stories, the chances are 70 percent of your audience will stick around until the end of your last post.
If you post longer stories, the drop-off isn’t too bad. You can still see completion rates above 50 percent for Stories that are made up of more than 20 photos and videos.
2. Post Stories consistently and at optimal times
Consistency is key to social media, and the Instagram algorithm agrees. Given that stories only last for 24 hours, you want to maximize the reach of that content. Consider posting your Story content a few times in one day and sharing your photos and videos in bite-sized chunks. Another factor to consider is posting your Story content at the times when your followers are most active on the app.
The best time to post will vary for every account based on its audience and when they are most active. To give you an idea of where to start, we studied the average completion rate of stories across the day.
As you can see, story completion rates are highest between 4-6 am, 8-10 am, 12-2 pm, and 8-10 pm (Eastern Time). But keep in mind that your account has its own set of unique followers, so only you can gauge, based on analytics, when you should post your Stories to get the best results.
3. Take advantage of creative features and tools
Use the in-app features and save yourself time, money, and energy when designing Stories. No need to use Photoshop or another expensive third-party software with a steep learning curve.
It's important to note that the Instagram algorithm won’t promote content from other apps. For example, in February 2021, Instagram shared they are de-prioritizing content that features a TikTok watermark. So if you cross-post a TikTok to IG Reels or Stories, it's going to get less visibility than something created natively in the Instagram app.
All the more reason to stick with in-app tools.
4. Go Live on Instagram, Occasionally
Instagram Live is a kind of Story that you film, as the name suggests, live. Your followers can passively watch your Live, interact with you in real time through chat, or request to join you so you can host the Live together.
Create Instagram Lives when you have a special announcement to make, want to host an event (e.g., a Q&A session or office hours), or want to connect with your audience on an even more personal level. When you start a Live session, your followers get notified, so more people watch and join your session.
5. Use Stories ads to boost reach, engagement, and conversions
Stories created for ad placements help small business owners drive awareness for their brand by sending traffic to a website or an in-app shop.
When we used Instagram Stories ads to promote our blog posts, we found they outperformed our Facebook feed ads. Our Instagram Stories ads cost just $0.
06 per click! (On Facebook, our feed ads usually cost around $0.30 – $0.60 per click.)
Story ad placements take up a user's full screen, which means you can eliminate competing distractions like notifications and in-feed content from other brands. Here are a few ads we’ve recently spotted on Instagram:
To save you time on content creation, make use of existing Stories saved in your Highlights. If you have an IG shop, you can use product links so users can purchase your products directly through the ad.
Check out our starter guide. It includes ad specs and tips for creating ad creatives. All you need to get started is a Facebook ads account!
Take your Instagram Stories to the next level with Buffer
Stories have become an incredibly important part of Instagram marketing strategy, and here at Buffer, we enable you to plan, preview, and schedule your Instagram Stories ahead of time, so you have everything ready to post with a single push notification.
Get started for free now.
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what is it, how to use it in business
We will tell you in detail whether it is worth using this tool for promotion and what types of effective content it is suitable for creating.
First, a brief background for those who are not aware of one of the most interesting Instagram entertainment and promotion tools (although this is unlikely if you have come to read our blog). Stories are mini-reports with a 24-hour validity period, they cannot be liked, they cannot be commented on. You can only write a message directly to the author. Posts are deleted automatically, leaving no mentions behind.
How to view stories on Instagram . In the mobile version of the application, above the general feed of photos and advertisements, there is a line of stories, each of which is framed in a circle with the author's avatar.
To view, click on the account you are interested in. Within one account, short stories are published one after another. If playback is not stopped, then stories will go one after another.
How to view stories on Instagram on a computer. In the classic desktop version of the application, this feature is not provided at all. The easiest way for the Google Chrome browser is to install a special Chrome extension IG Story, which will allow you not only to watch, but also download the latest stories.
For Mac owners, you will have to install a virtual smartphone - you can use the Nox APP Player. Install the Instagram application on it to use all the features of the service that are not available in the standard version.
How to add stories to instagram. Click on the leftmost circle with your photo. Take a photo, upload photos from your smartphone in the last 24 hours, or shoot a video, with or without effects.
If desired, special effects or stickers are added, you can specify geolocation or the exact time.
Instagram launched its new Stories section more than a year ago, in August 2016, but it wasn't until January 2017 that businesses were allowed to post promotional videos. Is it worth it to use stories in Russia today to promote a business? Let's look further.
Instagram stories popularity statistics
At the beginning of summer, the Instagram photo service revealed to the world brief statistics on user activity. And she can't help but impress!
- 250 million people around the world use Instagram Stories every day.
- Users under 25 spend up to 32 minutes daily on this social network, people older - 24 minutes each. In any case, this is enough to draw attention to your products and services.
- About 70% of all stories are viewed with sound. And about half use the account name with an @ sign, which allows you to immediately follow the link.
In July of this year, the American agency "L2" tracked 89 brands that actively use Instagram. During the analysis, it was found that in a month, marketers of companies published 1347 stories on Instagram.
The Russian Federation ranks fifth in the ranking of countries in which Internet users most actively distribute and watch Stories.
How to use Instagram Stories for business
In Russia, there were simply no analogues of advertising Stories with such an output to the right audience, so the innovation captured the Russian market, allowing companies to achieve outstanding results.
A proven fact is that stories are viewed by a more loyal audience who are interested in extraordinary things, and not bored ads in the feed.
Let's say your company already has a fairly developed and designed Instagram account. We will give some examples of content that can be published in stories with a light heart.
And at the same time, it is not necessary to use the services of a professional photographer and video editor. Creativity will be appreciated faster than retouching.
Backstage
Take behind-the-scenes photos and videos of work processes, show the openness and honesty of your company.
Such a backstage will significantly increase the level of customer confidence. And if your business is interesting purely from a production point of view, then periodically demonstrating “transparency” will warm up the interest of the audience. The main thing here is to adequately assess your abilities. Keyboard-punching marketers are less interesting than, for example, florists, animators, and chefs.
Announcements of events/webinars/live broadcasts/discounts
Talk about discounts that are valid "only today", stories are the most suitable tool for this! Take a picture of the poster of the upcoming concert, show off the new costumes of your rock band, record a video message from your director or guest star.
Do a series of express interviews with one question, for example: "Why do you need to go to Vasya Pupkin's party?". The main thing is that the resulting photo and video sequence is interesting and matches the lifestyle of your target audience. You understand, it is useless to invite you to an expensive master class on a narrow business topic with the help of clowns.
Presentation of new products
Do you have a new line of outerwear, a palette of eye shadows, toy trains, drills and so on? Show a pile of boxes, hangers with jackets, shelves with goods. Make a video of your product in action. Insert a designed poster for a free makeup lesson, an order form from your website, and so on.
Problem Solving/Customer Care/Raffles
Show how you deal with current issues or take care of your customers. For example, you pack an order for shipment in branded packages. Show how the randomizer works or how you draw a valuable prize among those present. This kindles interest and excitement (the more valuable the prize, the more response you will receive).
Clients and your products/services
Ask customers to send photos with your product, take photos of visitors with the “before / after” effect. For example, before and after a haircut (yes, this is the most successful option for a female audience). Take pictures with clients and congratulate partners on their birthday.
Features of using Instagram Stories
The Instagram audience loves to communicate freely with brands that are open to their customers. So be prepared to respond to incoming comments.
The most popular hashtags in stories
#goodmorning, #work, #goodnight, #mood, #happybirthday
Most popular stickers:
Geolocation, local time, like, hashtag sticker, air temperature
Show your brand in person, show the natural, "human" side of your company. It is always more interesting and more pleasant than advertising that is smooth-haired according to all the laws of marketing.
Let's advertise in stories, according to statistics, it collects a greater response than a classic ad in the feed.
Doubt whether you have worthy ideas for publications? Do an experiment: upload a classic post to your account and shoot a story with the same picture and a short video introduction. Make sure how different the number of likes under the photo and the number of viewed stories will be.
If you need help maintaining your profile or general advice on promoting your business on Instagram, please contact us.
Instagram* Stories: how and why to use this feature
August 9, 2016iOSAndroid
On Instagram*, you can share stories about interesting moments in your life without cluttering up your main feed. Everything you need to know about Instagram* Stories is here.
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0What it is
Stories, or "Stories" in Russian localization, allows you to create photos and 10-second videos with overlay text, emoji and handwritten notes. The key feature of such posts is that, unlike regular posts in your feed, they do not live forever and are deleted exactly after 24 hours.
Why you need it
The official description of Instagram* says that the new feature is needed to share not very important information about everyday life.
All those homemade or not good enough photos that you were embarrassed to upload will no longer just take up memory. You can share them with your friends without the risk of running into reproaches: the stories do not litter the feed, they are unobtrusive and only those who want to can view them.
How to use it
At its core, the innovation is very similar to Snapchat and works in much the same way, but with minor differences. Despite the fact that Instagram* Stories does not have many features and they are all very simple, not all users can deal with them right off the bat.
Viewing stories
All available stories are displayed at the top of the feed as circles with user avatars and are hidden during scrolling. New stories appear as they are published, and a day later they disappear without a trace.
At the same time, the stories are sorted not in chronological order, but by the number of playback cycles and comments.
To view, you just need to tap on the circle. The photo or video will open and display for 10 seconds. Tap and hold pauses the video.
At the top, next to the username, the publication time is shown. If the people you follow have other stories, the next ones will be shown immediately after the first one. You can switch between them by swiping left and right.
Stories that you have already viewed do not disappear from the menu, but are grayed out. They can be opened again until they are removed after a day.
You can only comment on stories using messages that are sent to Direct and are visible only to the author, and not to all subscribers. Whether it's a bug or a feature, I don't know.
Creating stories
Pressing the plus sign at the top of the feed and swiping from the edge of the screen to the right opens the menu for recording a new story.
Everything is simple here: we tap on the record button - we get a photo, we hold it - we shoot a video.
Capture or upload
You can switch the front and rear cameras or turn on the flash. It's also easy to select a media file from those that were filmed within the last 24 hours: this is done by swiping down. All photos from the gallery go here, including time-lapses and signature Instagram boomerangs*.
Processing
When the photos or videos are ready, they can be published after being processed. Both for photos and videos, the tools are the same: filters, text and emoji, drawings.
Filters are switched in a circle with simple swipes from the edge of the screen. There are six in total, including a rainbow gradient like on the Instagram* icon.
Added text can be enlarged or reduced, moved around the photo. But to leave more than one comment, unfortunately, it is impossible. Emoji are also inserted through the text, so if you want to cover your face with an emoji, you have to choose.
Drawing has a little more power. We have at our disposal a palette and as many as three brushes: regular, marker and with a “neon” stroke. You can draw all at once, while an unsuccessful stroke can be canceled.
Satisfied with the result? Click the checkmark button and your video will become available to subscribers. It can be saved to the gallery both before and after.
Privacy settings, statistics
When a story is published, you can view it from the stories menu, hide it from certain users, find out how many people saw it and who it was.
The settings and statistics screen is called up by swiping up while viewing a story. From here, the story can be saved to the gallery, deleted, or published to the main feed, turning it into a regular post. The list of viewers is displayed below. You can hide the story from any of them by clicking on the cross next to the name.
The settings hidden behind the gear icon allow you to choose who can reply to your stories and hide the story from certain subscribers.
