How many instagram story highlights can you have
How to Use Instagram Stories Highlights to Wow Your Followers
Instagram Stories Highlights are an incredible tool for businesses to showcase and promote their brand.
Your highlights live front-and-center on your Instagram profile, so they’re perfect for helping new visitors discover what your company is all about.
But just like your Instagram Stories, it’s worth spending time planning and strategizing how to use them to your advantage!
In this post, you’ll learn how to use Instagram Stories Highlights and we’ll give you 12 ideas on how you can use them to make an impact on your business:
Table of Contents
What are Instagram Stories Highlights?
How to Create an Instagram Stories Highlights
12 Ways to Use Instagram Stories Highlights
Things to Know About Instagram Stories Highlights
What are Instagram Stories Highlights?
Unlike regular Instagram Stories that vanish after 24 hours, Instagram Stories Highlights can live permanently on your profile.
They’re like curated collections of Instagram Stories that your followers — both old and new — can tap into and watch any time they like.
And because of their prime location directly under your bio and above your Instagram feed, it’s the perfect place to direct followers to your most valuable and interesting content.
Instagram Stories Highlights are extremely valuable because they allow brands to easily curate and showcase the content they want users to see first.
You can think of them as a movie trailer for your Instagram feed. They’re a creative way to express yourself, show off your products, drive traffic, or market your business!
Sometimes your viewers might be looking for something specific from your stories post, like more information about a new launch or a sale you’re running. For this type of content, Instagram Highlights are the perfect way to reach out, without putting a time limit on when viewers can watch!
Not sure where to start when it comes to marketing your business with Instagram Stories? Check out our Ultimate Guide to Instagram Stories for Business blog post for tips on how to get more followers, traffic, and sales with Instagram Stories!
How to Use Instagram Stories Highlights:
Before you can start sharing awesome Instagram Stories Highlights on your profile, you need to learn how to create them! Here’s how to do it:
Step 1: Turn on Instagram’s Auto-Archiving Feature
One major benefit of the new Instagram Stories Archive feature for brands is that it eliminates any anxiety around losing valuable content.
Similar to the Snapchat Memories feature, the new Instagram Stories Archive will automatically save (or “archive”) your stories into the cloud, so they won’t be lost forever if you forget to save them to your camera roll.
As long as you keep the auto-archiving feature turned on, you can save and re-share your very best Instagram Stories even after the 24-hour period has passed.
To do this, head to your Instagram profile, open your settings, tap on Privacy and Security, and then Story Controls.
Here you can toggle the Save to Archive option to on.
Once you do this, your Instagram Stories should automatically save to your archive. You can view your archived posts by tapping the “clock” icon in the top-left corner of your Instagram profile.
Step 2: Create Your Instagram Stories HighlightsNow that your Instagram Stories Archive is set up, you can create your first Instagram Stories Highlight!
Note: If you’ve just turned on your Instagram Stories Archive, only your stories posts from this time will be saved.
To create an Instagram Stories Highlight, go to your Instagram profile and on the down-arrow next to “Story Highlights” and then tap the “New” or “+” button.
Next, select the Instagram Stories that you want to add to your highlight.
Step 3: Pick the Cover Photo for Your Instagram Stories HighlightsAfter you’ve selected your stories, you’ll be prompted to choose a title and select your cover photo.
You can either choose a thumbnail from one of the stories in your highlight, or you can upload an image from your camera roll!
We definitely recommend the second option. Creating branded highlights covers will help keep the look and feel of your Instagram profile page consistent with your overall Instagram aesthetic.
You want to make sure that you’re not only sharing information your audience is interested in, but it’s also designed to perfection to complement your overall look!
To help you easily create your own Instagram Stories Highlights covers, we’re sharing free Instagram Stories Highlights icons that you can customize to fit your profile! Just enter your email below to download the icons!
Once you’re all set up, you can edit or remove a highlight by tapping and holding that highlight on your profile.
From here, you can change the name, edit the cover, and add/remove stories to your highlights.
And that’s it! You’re all set to start using Instagram Stores Highlights to market your business and share more awesome content with your followers!
Looking to optimize your Instagram Stories strategy this year? Check out our free 45-minute video course on how to design beautiful Instagram Stories that will help you get more followers, traffic, and sales!
12 Ways to Use Instagram Stories Highlights to Wow Your Customers
Your Instagram Stories Highlights are your cherry-picked stories that you want to share with your followers indefinitely — it’s the cream of your Instagram Stories crop and you want to make sure you’re using only best content for your business.
Grouping your Instagram Stories Highlights together into various categories, events, or topics makes it super-easy for audiences to find the stories that are of most interest to them.
It’s also a great way to add value to your feed, explain what your business is about, and attract new Instagram followers with a curated Instagram aesthetic.
Here are 12 ways you can use Instagram Stories Highlights for business:
Instagram Stories Highlights Uses #1: Highlight Products or CollectionsFashion and lifestyle brands can use Instagram Stories Highlights to create separate channels for seasonal collections, new arrivals, or to share sales and other promotions.
The New York-based streetwear brand @kithwomen uses Instagram Stories Highlight to showcase its product collections, including activewear, workwear, collegiate, and more.
Likewise, @glossier uses Instagram Stories Highlights to feature specific products, like Haloscope. Throughout the highlight, Glossier includes swipe up links to drive traffic to their online store where people can actually buy the product!
Instagram Stories Highlights Uses #2: Highlight Trends and TopicsBrands who regularly publish content, like magazines or blogs, could create Instagram Stories Highlights based on the categories or topics they write about.
Each time a story is created based on that topic, it can be filed into the appropriate Highlight category — making it simple for followers to view the content they’re interested in.
For example, @bonappetitmag does this often, creating separate Highlights for their content series like “BFW” (Big Fat Weekend) and the various locations they cover it:
Instagram Stories Highlights Uses #3: Highlights Based on Audience or InterestYou could also organize your Instagram Stories Highlights based on your follower demographics.
For example, a department store could have various Highlights for its target customers: children, women, men, home goods, electronics, etc. A television network might choose to organize content based on the genre like sci-fi, drama, comedy, or action.
Architecture and design publisher @dezeen uses their Highlights to categorize their content based on their audience’s interests, including “Interiors,” “Design,” “Architecture,” “Technology,” and more.
If you’d like to use your social media channels to educate your audience, you can organize your most helpful tutorials, tips, and tricks into your Instagram Stories Highlights.
For example, video hosting and analytics company @wistia uses one of their Instagram Stories Highlights to offer tips on how to create great-looking videos on your mobile device:
We also organize all our Instagram Stories tips on our Later profile!
Instagram Stories Highlights Uses #5: Highlight Seasonal Events and HolidaysSharing stories around specific holidays and global events is a great way to keep your account relevant and current.
For example, a coffee roasting company might share content on International Coffee Day, while a donut company could share a series of engaging stories on International Donut Day. If the stories are enough of a hit, you should consider turning them into a Highlight on your profile to continue driving engagement even after the holiday is over!
Check out how @slumberstays, a company that curates unique properties from around the world, uses their Highlights to celebrate International Women’s Day.
ICYMI: You can download Later’s free Social Media Calendar to keep your Instagram up-to-date and plan your content ahead of time!
Instagram Stories Highlights Uses #6: Highlight Your CustomersDo your customers love tagging you in Instagram Stories or regularly use your branded hashtag in posts? You can repurpose this content and post to your own Instagram Stories Highlights. This is not only a great way to give your customers a virtual shout-out, but it also showcases your business in an authentic way through UGC (user-generated content).
This Chrome extension will allow you to save another user’s story so that you can add it to your profile. Just make sure that you get permission first and give proper credit to the original creator by tagging them in your story when you post.
Instagram Stories Highlights Uses #7: Highlight Your Partners & InfluencersIf you work with influencers, brand ambassadors, or host regular Instagram Stories takeovers, you can organize all of your partner content into an Instagram Stories Highlight.
Skincare company @summerfridays does this often in their Instagram Stories Highlights. In fact, they even have a “Takeovers” Highlight that compiles all of their interviews and takeovers from partners over the last few months.
Instagram Stories Highlights Uses #8: Highlight Your CampaignsIf you have a promotion or campaign that you’ve put a lot of work into, it can be pretty sad to watch it disappear after only 24 hours! With Instagram Stories Highlights, you can ensure it can be viewed by as many people as possible by pinning it on your profile for as long as that specific campaign is active.
And when it comes to launching a campaign on Instagram Stories, did you know that you can schedule your stories posts in advance with Later? Now you can storyboard your content, add captions or links, collaborate with your team, and visually plan and schedule Instagram Stories right from your desktop!
Instagram Stories Highlights Uses #9: Highlight Your Affiliates & Ad PartnersInfluencers and businesses who employ affiliate marketing strategies on social will be able to give their affiliate and #ad posts a much longer shelf life than they could via Instagram Stories alone.
You can choose to organize your affiliate posts based on specific brand partnerships or create categories based on the audience who the information will best serve.
Instagram Stories Highlights Uses #10: Highlight Your EventsMusicians can create Instagram Stories Highlights for live shows, and sports teams might choose to create Highlights for big games.
If you’re a brand who regularly covers events in your Instagram Stories, create an Instagram Stories Highlight category for them and keep all of the action in one place!
Check out how @bof uses their Highlights to share behind-the-scenes content from fashion events:
Instagram Stories Highlights Uses #11: Highlight Your Reviews & TestimonialsIf you want to share your stellar customer reviews with your followers, you can create an Instagram Stories Highlight for that! @curology did this by sharing screenshots and posts of customers reactions to their products:
After sharing 10-12 reviews from happy customers, they finish the story by adding a link at the end to swipe up and shop the product everyone was raving about.
“Episodic content” is already becoming a big trend on Instagram Stories, like @bustle’s “Beauty Call” or @curbed’s “House Calls.”
And according to Curbed’s social media manager, Margaret Lim, who spoke with Digiday, their episodic content does a better job of keeping viewers engaged than the average Instagram story.
Things to Know About Instagram Stories HighlightsCreating amazing Instagram Stories content is more important than ever before.
While you can obviously continue to share in-the-moment, ephemeral content on a daily basis, Instagram Stories Highlights urges you to plan ahead and become more strategic with your Instagram Stories.
Here are some of the finer details:
You can only add stories to your Highlight that have been posted to your Instagram Stories since December 2017 (or since you started archiving).
You can add up to 100 photos or videos to your Instagram Stories Highlights and there’s no limit to how many Instagram Stories Highlights you can create.
If you add more than 100 clips to your current story, the first one will be removed and added to your Archive.
Just like the regular Instagram posts that you can choose to archive from your feed, only YOU can see your Instagram Stories Archive.
Feeling ready to take on Instagram Stories to grow your business this year? Sign up for our free Instagram Stories Course today and learn how to create Instagram Stories that will help you get more followers, traffic, and sales!
How many Highlights can you Have on Instagram [Solved] 2022
Best Answer:
- There is no limit on the Number of Highlights you can Have on Instagram.
- You can add up to 100 photos or videos to your Instagram Stories Highlights.
- There is no limit to how many Instagram Stories Highlights you can create. Instagram Organizes story views according to the viewer's activity on the account.
- You can add 100 videos or photos to one highlighted category.
But the great thing is that you can create as many highlights as you want.
Do Instagram Highlights Expire?
Unlike Instagram Stories, which disappear after 24 hours, It can be permanently there on your profile.
This is why you should consider spending some time planning how to use them to showcase and promote your brand.
Is there Any Limit for IG Stories?
Instagram Stories, otherwise known as IG Stories, can be a maximum of 15 seconds and can be viewed for just 24 hours.
Stories offer twice the length of photos (currently 7 seconds).
How Many Story Highlights Should I have?
You should note that there is no limit to how many Instagram story highlights you can create.
Also, note that every time you change a story to a highlight, that story will move to the first position.
After more than 5 highlights, your audience will have to scroll to see the others.
Can Anyone See if I've been Looking at their Highlights on Instagram?
No, you can't see how many times someone sees your Instagram highlight. Instagram only shows the number of views and who saw them, not how many times they viewed it.
A person who looks at your story could see it a million times and you would never know.
Why Can't I Add it to My Instagram Highlights?
For Highlights on Instagram to work properly, the setting known as Save to Archive should be enabled. This will save your stories to your archive.
Later you can add any past story to your highlight.
If this is not enabled, you will not be able to use it.
Can I Add a Highlight Without a Story?
If you're using a smartphone to post on Instagram and you're looking to add photos from your gallery to Instagram's best, it's possible. You can also edit your Instagram stories.
However, if you don't want others to see your stories, but you want them to see your highlights, you should know that you can't add to highlights without adding to them.
Does Hiding Story also Hide Story Highlights on Instagram?
- Yes, as long as you hide them from your Instagram stories first.
- If you have blocked your account from seeing your stories, it will automatically be blocked from seeing your Picks.
- If your account is private, your selections, like your stories, will only be visible to your approved followers.
Can I Add a Reel to my Highlights?
- You can add your Instagram Reels content as a highlight on your Instagram profile.
- Instagram Highlights is a permanent place for your Stories.
- Many creators use them as FAQs or to save content to collections.
life hacks and tricks for creating stories on Instagram
Stories took the attention away from the feed of publications. In 2020, not using Stories means losing 50% of the engagement that could be in the profile. And the popularity of stories continues to grow - more than 3 million Instagram stories are published daily in the world.
In this article, we will tell and show how to make stories on Instagram, how a business can use stories, and provide a sea of cool ideas on what to publish in stories to engage and retain followers.
Contents
What is Stories?
Why you should use stories
How to make your story
Do businesses need Stories?
TOP 9 third-party services for creating stories
Ideas for creating Stories
Life hacks and story tricks
Privacy settings
What are Stories?
Stories and Instagram Stories are the most popular Instagram format.
It was launched on August 2, 2016 and became extremely popular with users.
Stories are photos and videos that sit in a separate section at the top of your news feed and disappear after 24 hours.
Stories in the Instagram feed
The developers of the social network are actively developing it and constantly improving it. That is why recently in some accounts (so far in test mode) a story feed has appeared.
This is what the story feed looks like
The duration of stories is 15 seconds, however, developers are testing the format of longer stories, increasing the time to 30-60 seconds.
At the moment, the entire Instagram ecosystem is divided into 2 camps:
- users who “live” in stories and occasionally post posts with important information;
- users who publish photos and videos every day to the feed, while they either do not watch stories at all or quickly scroll through them.
Why you should use stories
- Stories last 24 hours. This means that the user has 24 hours to view the content. Here, the fear of missing out on something interesting and important is triggered, so the chance that the user will watch the story is much greater. This accordingly affects the coverage of both the stories themselves and the posts in the profile, if there was an announcement of the publication in the stories.
- Stories are always in sight. The Instagram algorithm works in much the same way as in Facebook: it decides which posts to show and which not for each specific user. In the case of stories, this does not work, since stories are always at the top in the order of publication.
- You can always see the list of users who viewed the story while it was published. In ordinary publications, you can only see who liked or left a comment, but you can’t see who exactly saw the post.
- Stories can be pinned to your profile in the highlights section. They are also called eternal stories.
- Stories are easier to get into the recommendation block than regular posts. To get into the recommendations, you need to put relevant hashtags and geolocation in the story - this tells Instagram that the story was recorded on a certain topic in a certain place. When a user enters recommendations, he may see a block of recommendations from stories from a specific location. For example, a user who is located next to a Starbucks coffee shop in St. Petersburg can be shown stories recorded in this coffee shop. For a post to be recommended, it must have a lot of activity.
- Stories have much more options for editing posts. When we post a regular photo, we can apply a filter, rotate the photo, tag a person and a place, or use third-party effects applications. And in stories, we can not only do all these actions inside the application, but also add stickers, animation, geolocation, text, music, hashtags, weather conditions, and so on. That is, stories are a ready-made tool for editing visual content.
- You can create a full-fledged poll in stories. Yes, you can ask a question under a regular post and ask subscribers to answer it in the comments. But now the average user of social networks is lazy and leaving a comment under the post is a real feat. In the story, we can add a sticker with a survey or test, and all the user needs to do is click on one of the options.
Arrangement of stories in the order they were published
Where can I see people who have watched stories?
Opening our story:
Opening history
Then he clicks on the thumbnails of avatars with the inscription “Viewed”.
History from a personal account
And here we can see those people who viewed this story:
List of those who viewed stories
You can also see the list of those who have watched the story in the archive.
In order to access the archive, go to your profile and click on the three bars in the upper right corner - this is your profile menu.
Profile menu
Next, click on "Archive":
Archive button
And voila, we are in the archive:
Stories archive
To see who viewed the story, we do the same manipulations as described above: click on the desired story - then click on the thumbnails of the avatars and get to the "Viewed" section.
Viewed button
Users who viewed history
Just like for normal posts, we can see the story statistics. To do this, go to the profile menu:
Profile menu
Open the "Statistics" tab:
Statistics Section
Next, scroll down and find the "Stories" section and click the "All" button:
Press the "All" button
We get into the statistics of stories:
History statistics
By the way, since recently, stories statistics can only be viewed for 24 hours, 7 days and 14 days.
Time period for which history statistics can be viewed
And in this tab we can see the statistics of the indicator that we need:
History tab
Here we can see reach, website clicks, button clicks, and more.
History indicators
Why is it useful to know who is watching your stories? If your account is not promoted, then in this way you can identify a “hot audience”, and also make sure that these are not bots. If your account is promoted and followed by, for example, an opinion leader you follow or some celebrity.
See also How to promote Instagram yourself from scratch: detailed instructions
For example, recently the singer Drake signed up for the account of a Moscow tiler. You can read about it here. If the singer watches the story of this tiler, then you can release a video with an appeal directly to the singer (for example, on behalf of the brand) with a proposal for cooperation.
Hightlights (highlights)
In this case, when a person enters your account, he sees not only your publications, but also a list of stories above the feed. This will help to identify not only the hottest users, but also those who specifically went to your profile and viewed the section with stories: these are potential leads, customers, potential fans, positive people and brand advocates.
Instagram poll example
How to make your own story
To make a story for your Instagram you need:
- Go to Instagram and click on your profile picture.
If during the day you did not have a single story, then next to the profile picture there will be a “+” icon. If you already have a story, then scroll down the article, because you already know how to do it :) - Next, we get into the application's camera and immediately see that we can take a normal photo by clicking on the "Shoot" button. And to record a regular video, hold down the "Shoot" button for a long time.
- Next, we can mark the business partner.
- We can save the photo. Click on the arrow as shown in the screenshot below and your edited photo will be saved to your phone.
- Add stickers. Click on the icon as shown below and choose any sticker you like.
- Add text
- We can draw something directly on a photo or video
- When the photo is ready, click on the "Your story" button to publish the story.
Click on the avatar
Capture button
We can immediately apply a mask or effect:
Effects and masks
Or we can launch a live broadcast to communicate with our audience online.
Live button
You can also add photos and videos from your library on your mobile device:
Library button
Mobile photo
And we can also apply the effect.
To do this, click on the smiley with sparkles:
Selecting an effect for the finished photo
And choose the effect or mask you like:
Effects and masks
So, back to the camera. On the right we see the shooting modes. Click on the arrow:
Expanding the list of shooting modes
And open the full list of modes:
Complete list of shooting modes
Boomerang is a looped video.
Stories boomerang example
Collage - a composition from a photo.
Sample collage for story
Superzoom - zooms in on the frame with music overlay.
An example of a superzoom for Stories
Hands free mode - you can record video without long pressing the "record" button.
Branded Content Tag
When we mark a business partner in the history, the inscription "Sponsor of the publication" and the name / name of the partner company appear.
"Publication Sponsor" inscription
The business partner will be able to view the metrics of this story, we will be able to see our story in the "Ad Library" section, and the ability to edit this story will be limited.
Photo saving
Adding stickers
Add text
Instagram recently expanded the number of fonts you can use.
This gives a new impetus to creativity :)
Drawing mode
Publish stories
Ready. Now your story is uploading and all your followers will see it.
Congratulations, you have learned how to make stories on Instagram.
By the way, for stories there is a category “Close friends”. This means that only the people you want to show your story to will see your story. To post stories only for a certain circle of people, when publishing, click the "Close friends" button.
"Close Friends"
Instagram also began testing the function of automatically generated subtitles in stories. Now it will be possible to understand what bloggers are saying, even without sound.
Do businesses need Stories?
There is an unequivocal answer to this question: absolutely necessary. And that's why:
- Thanks to stories, you can increase the coverage of publications in the feed: make announcements of new posts and interest users. Let's not forget about the people who watch only stories instead of the news feed;
- Advertising stories is cheaper, as there is little competition. However, this will change drastically soon as more and more brands are using story ads.
- Stories work great for audience engagement. Polls, quizzes, games - these story formats are good for people.
Example of Audience Engagement with Survey
TOP 9 Third Party Services for Creating Stories
Are you wondering how to make stories on Instagram unusual and bright? If you don’t have enough built-in visual content creation tools to create stories, you can use third-party services.
Below I will tell and show about the TOP 9 third-party story creation apps that we use in our work.
1. StoryPic - Story Maker - for those who like it brighter
An application for lovers of bright and unusual Stories. The templates are grouped into the Popular, Colors, Free Templates collections. Each collection has several design options in the same style. All collections of templates are distinguished by non-standard frames, play of shapes and contours, as well as elements (icons, substrates, backgrounds).
StoryPic app
Pros:
- You don't need registration and an account to work.
- 23 free templates available.
- You can work with fonts.
Cons:
- There are very few Cyrillic fonts.
- Lots of advertisements.
You can work for free, there is paid content.
2. StoryArt – everything is included here
A large set of templates for every taste, divided into categories.
More than 1,000 design options are available. You can create covers for Hightlights - more than 200 templates are available.
StoryArt App
Pros:
- You can post a picture to Instagram directly from the app.
- You can edit photos: correction, colors, vignettes.
- It is possible to set up quick access to frequently used templates in the "Favorites" section.
Cons:
- The resolution of the finished publications does not always correspond to the Instagram format, some of the edges are cut off.
- Few Cyrillic fonts.
You can work for free, but there is paid content.
3. Mojito - animated stories for those who are tired of ordinary pictures
Application for creating regular and animated stories, as well as short videos. There are 48 static story templates, 34 video templates and 19for animated.
The application is constantly updated and new templates are added.
Mojito application
Pros:
- You can edit templates to your taste;
- You can insert your videos into templates;
- Can overlay music;
- Cool fonts with animation.
Cons:
- Not enough templates compared to similar applications;
- Few Cyrillic fonts.
Completely free.
See also TOP 8 major mistakes when promoting on Instagram
4. Story Maker - for stylish creators
A large number of templates, divided into collections: by holidays, by style, by purpose (for advertising, regular stories, etc.). The image editing kit is minimal: you can overlay text, a sticker, and add your own photo.
Story Maker App
Pros:
- Original and stylish templates;
- The application is completely free.
Cons:
- Poor functionality;
- Lots of advertisements
You can work for free.
5. Mojo - also for animated stories
The app creates slideshows of photos in stories. With the help of effects, photos move around the screen, change places, increase or decrease in size. Animation can be superimposed on text: add glowing and moving effects.
Mojo App
Pros:
- You don't need to register to use it.
- There is a special collection of animated templates for news stories.
- Publications are saved without watermarks.
Cons:
- Limited functionality for Android.
- Few Cyrillic fonts.
- Limited functionality in the free version.
You can work for free, but there is paid content.
6. Hype Text - work with text like a pro
Application exclusively for working with text.
Able to create animated titles. The background can only be selected from the directory of the application itself.
Hype Text Application
Pros:
- You can adjust the speed of text animation.
- You can edit existing templates - change colors and sizes.
- Over 200 text animated layouts.
- Layouts display well with Russian text.
Cons:
- Animation time is limited (6 sec).
- In the free version of the application, publications are saved with a watermark.
- Lots of advertisements.
You can work for free, but there are paid options.
7. InShot - cinema studio right on your phone
Video editing application. Allows you to process video fragments and glue them into full-fledged clips. You can overlay music, text, special effects and filters. You don’t need any special skills to use the application, it’s easy to deal with it.
Application InShot
Pluses:
- You can apply special effects.
- You can blur the background of the video.
- There is a music gallery.
- Both video and audio files can be trimmed.
- You can adjust the speed of the video: speed up or slow down the clips.
- You can overlay text, stickers, stickers.
Cons:
- In the free version, publications are saved with a watermark.
- It is not possible to paste text from the clipboard, only print it yourself.
- No video transitions between video slides.
You can work for free, but there is paid content.
8. Animated Stories is another app for animated stories
Application for animated stories. Allows you to overlay text, stickers. You can overlay music, but it is added from a mobile device. Works only with photos.
Animated Stories App
9 .
Nichi is a cool app for creative ideas Another app that creates layered stories. There are collections of stickers, filters, backgrounds, fonts. The application is easy to use and has wide functionality.
Application Nichi
Pros:
- There are many features available in the free version.
- You can create your own templates from built-in elements.
- There are backgrounds with various textures.
- You can create collages.
Cons:
- Few Russian fonts.
- Advertisement present.
You can work for free, but there is paid content.
Ideas for creating Stories
Behind-the-scenes photos and videos
People love live content. They love to watch the development and events that the brand hosts. If you upload beautiful staged photos to the feed, subscribers will be interested in how everything looked live.
For example, here are a couple of shots from life inside our agency: the birthday of the Web Center and the shooting of a new video for our YouTube channel.
Sample behind-the-scenes video from the Web Center
Customer reviews and content
Reviews are great proof that people love what a brand does: product, content, service. This is useful content that will help you improve and consolidate the reputation of your company without any effort or investment. If you received a notification that a user tagged you in a post or story, just share it on your profile. Reviews worth adding highlights.
An example of reviews about the Web Center Academy
For example, we post testimonials from our clients and Academy interns in the “Reviews” highlight.
Surveys and tests
If you want to know the opinion of your subscribers, then ask it using the Poll or Quiz sticker.
Create a poll and set the time when voting ends. You will have 2 possible answers. After the subscribers vote, you can publish the results in stories. So people will see the percentage of votes.
By the way, when the user clicks one of the two buttons, you will see the number of voters, profile names and percentage.
Poll example
Create a quiz. And here are 2 options:
- A quiz with only 1 correct answer. Ask a question and invite subscribers to guess the correct option from 5-6 options.
- Quiz with multiple choices but no correct answer. This quiz aims to find out the opinion of your audience or, for example, give them several options for the topic of an article / video. For subscribers, only the conditional correct answer will be visible. You can see the voting results in the history statistics and publish them in stories.
Poll example
You can ask subscribers for advice or find out what their experience was.
You can ask what product they are waiting for in the assortment or what gift they are going to give their loved ones for any holiday. Often, subscribers participate in surveys to find out how many people think differently.
Open questions
One of the formats for communicating with subscribers. There are 2 options for how you can use open-ended questions:
- Questions are asked to you - write in the box so that users ask you questions and publish your answers in stories;
- Let users answer your question - write a question in the box and post subscribers' answers in stories and agree or refute their answers.
Example of open questions
You can answer both in video format and write the answer over a photo or a colored background. Ask questions, answer them, ask for advice - any communication with the audience automatically increases brand loyalty.
Memories
If there is nothing to post “today”, you can remind subscribers about an interesting post that you posted a few months or a year ago.
To find Memories, go to the stories archive and scroll to the end of the feed. Below the feed will be posts from the feed that you posted on the same date as "today".
Memories from the history archive
Happy Holidays
Post holiday greetings for the audience, birthdays of employees or especially active subscribers, and so on. Along with congratulations, you can report promotions, opening hours or gifts in honor of this day. You can also congratulate the winners of competitions.
An example of congratulations in stories
Announcements and news
Announce new events, new products, price changes, invitations to webinars and other useful news. As we wrote above, people are divided into two camps: some watch the feed, others watch stories. That is why all the most important things should be duplicated in stories.
Stories announcement example
Live broadcasts
People love to communicate with brands, bloggers and get feedback from them.
Therefore, conduct live broadcasts: in the Q&A format, just communicate with the audience.
Before starting a live broadcast, consider a few important details:
- Choose a hot topic. In the announcements, explain why you chose it, why people should watch this broadcast. Also don't forget to fill in the live stream title (this is a relatively recent feature)0052
- Do not forget to specify the date and time of the broadcast.
- During a live broadcast, address the audience: ask the audience to ask questions and answer them. Users will be more involved in the dialogue if you ask them to.
Live broadcasts can be saved to IGTV and reviewed at any time.
You can invite a guest for an interview - a specialist from your field. For example, the head of the Web Center Roman Plotnikov conducts a series of live broadcasts “Everything is online: how to enter and advance in digital”.
An example of live broadcasts from the "All in Online" series with the head of the Web Center Roman Plotnikov
Create a mini-cartoon
This option is for the most creative.
Create an animated scene with famous characters. People love creativity and will definitely respond. All you need to do for this is to choose the right stickers, and then - a flight of fancy.
Life hacks and story tricks
- If you took a photo for Instagram, you can swipe right and select the appropriate filter.
- Only users/brands with checkmarks or those with more than 10,000 followers can add a link to the site in stories. How to make a link in stories on Instagram? As soon as you cross the threshold of 10,000 subscribers, a link icon will appear at the top of the Stories toolbar.
- On Instagram, you can write text on a gradient background.
To do this, just press the "Text" button in the camera mode. The background can be selected by clicking on the colored circle. - In stories, you can fill the screen with one color. How to do it: click on the drawing icon, which is located in the upper left corner.
- If you want to write text or make a stroke in the shade that is on the photo, you first need to click on the colored circle - open the palette - put your finger behind the photo - select the desired color.
Link in stories
Drawing mode
Select any color from the palette then long press on the screen.
See also Hashtags - why they are needed and how to use them
On a filled screen, you can draw with an eraser. If you just tap on the screen, you get circles, but you can also draw with your finger by reducing the size of the eraser.
Eraser pattern example
Color palette
Privacy settings
If a user posts too many stories, you can hide that person's stories. To do this, make a long press on the avatar:
Pin the user's avatar
And then click the Hide button.
Hide button
You can hide only stories or posts and stories.
Hiding history buttons
If you want to watch his stories again, then scroll through the stories to the very end, find this user there.
User whose stories we have hidden
Next, hold down his avatar again and turn on the display of his stories.
Show history button
To tag someone in history, start typing a nickname in the @webcentr format. Instagram itself will offer profile options.
Profile tag
A notification about a mention in your story will be sent to the user in direct.
Conclusion
To summarize. Stories is the most powerful tool for business promotion and every day everything is gaining momentum. Developers, in turn, are constantly improving this type of content. We are confident that Stories will continue to develop and provide more and more business tools.
Use the coolest Instagram story hacks and ideas. Surprise your subscribers and let your stories collect a huge number of views.
Good luck with your business!
- Entrust the promotion of your social networks to professionals. Leave a request and our managers will contact you within an hour.
5 ways to increase the reach of Instagram stories. Read on Cossa.ru
Social networks compete for user attention. We suggested the criteria by which Instagram determines the user's interest in a post and tested different ways to increase the coverage of stories. Five of them worked. We will consider them in the article.
By the way, the quality of your audience also affects the reach, because the more live active audience on the account, the higher the engagement and, as a result, the reach.
You can analyze subscribers for free and find out their quality through the Instahero service.
1. View stories from first to last
One of the indicators of user attention is the depth of interaction with stories. If you have 10 stories and the user has viewed 6 of them, it's not the same when another user has 6 stories and the user has viewed them all. We set ourselves the goal of closing the reach gap between the first and last stories, expecting this to increase their reach. Here are a few tools that helped achieve the goal:
Story split into multiple stories
The coverage of these stories was about 25k, while the average coverage of stories in the project was 17k. The gap between the first and last story was 27% smaller than average
It can also be comics, stories, sketches or even cartoons.
The coverage of these stories is 38.5k with an average of 20k. The gap between the first and last story was 30% smaller than average
In addition to the story, divided into several stories, the song works, also divided into several stories.
The content may not be related to each other, but the song, if it gets into the target audience, keeps the subscriber.
2. Returns to previous stories
The backtracking mechanic implies that a person, having watched the stories to the end, will return to the previous ones, thereby increasing the number and depth of interactions, which will affect the reach.
The coverage of these stories is 23k on average, with an average of 18k. Returns 30% above average
3. History delay
There are several ways to achieve delay.
Long text
A story with a long text is designed so that a person who wants to read everything will stop the story for a while (by clicking on the screen). And this, after all, is an interaction that will show the smart algorithms of Instagram that the stories of this project are interesting to the subscriber.
Catch something dynamic
Here the principle is the same as in stories with long text, but you need not to read, but to play.
We took an ordinary photo of Einstein and made him several versions of his mouth, which changed in a split second, and in order to “catch” the correct one, it was necessary to click on the screen and stop the story. This mechanic increased the reach of stories and helped keep subscribers entertained.
Spot the difference
In each of these mechanics, coverage was above average
4. Availability and quality of interactive content
Stories with interactive reach better than without them. Naturally, the quality of the interactive is important: getting into the client's pain/interest, wording, design.
5. Motivation to move from feed to story
Call in description
In order to agitate subscribers to view stories more often, to clearly show them that there is also a lot of cool content, we began to make calls for forwarding from feed to stories.
Thus, you can get additional coverage of subscribers who, perhaps, have never watched the stories of our project before (or did not know about their existence).
And as we know, the interaction of a subscriber with a project promotes it (the project) in the list of issuance of stories, which means more coverage in the future.
We make such posts in order to intrigue subscribers and make them watch stories. In the post from the example (above), we used an enticing title, a short and clear explanation, and a call to watch the stories. In stories, we published 5 bright photos with a similar caption.
Coverage of stories increased by almost 2 times
Carousel call
Here we added a screen to the carousel of a regular post with a call to look into the stories (showed where they are and where to click). Additionally, after the interactive in the description, they made another call and wrote what these stories were about.
Call for instructions after video
The principle is the same as in the previous example, but here we abandoned the carousel format and added "instructions" to the video itself during editing.
We did not focus on a particular story, but simply reminded them of their existence.
Output
To increase the reach of stories, you need to not just publish a certain number of them at the right time, but also work on the quality of the stories themselves, interaction with the audience and engagement. Because the algorithm for issuing stories is influenced not only by the relevance of the publication (time and number), but also by the interests of the subscriber and his attitude to the project. Only the combination of all these factors will help the account to get to the top of the list of subscriber stories and get more chances to be viewed.
And briefly about the main thing:
- Always analyze stories. Publish only the best formats and categories, as well as improve problematic ones.
- Analyze not only content, but also subscribers to know who is watching and reading you. This will help to make content specifically for your audience (free analysis can be done through the aforementioned InstaHero service).
- Publish stories during the most efficient hours (04:00 - 06:00; 08:00 - 10:00; 12:00 - 14:00; 20:00 - 22:00).
- Post content stories before ads.
- Motivate to watch stories in feed posts.
- Use interesting and enticing text in stories to keep the user engaged.
- Intrigue subscribers by publishing interesting stories (photos, videos, music) divided into several stories.
- Make games, quests and other useful things so that the user clicks on the screen and stops the story, returns to the previous one, and also wants to watch them all to the end.
| | | Alexander Chizhov Director of Chizhov Studio | |
“First of all, I want to thank my colleagues for the material.
I still don’t remember materials on the Russian-speaking Internet where people in practice used various methods to increase coverage in stories and shared conclusions, and not just advised to make “quality content” and in general “to do well, but not to do badly”.
To the point. In parallel with the authors, we also study the data from the stories posted in the Instagram accounts of our clients and, through the Instagram API, upload data on the following parameters: coverage, story format, forward clicks, back clicks, replies and exits.
Our data, which is pleasing, largely coincided with the conclusions of colleagues.
1. The higher the ratio of exits to reach, the lower the reach; if it’s simpler, the more often people leave your stories feed, the lower the reach. It is important to ensure that there are as few "interruptions" as possible and that people watch all stories from beginning to end. How - the examples from the article work.
2. The more “forward clicks” and “back clicks” on stories, the higher the reach, and this is also a fact.
