Instagram has a great Stories feature called Countdown. It's super simple, with the caveat that it's limited to twenty-four-hour Stories and not something you can use elsewhere.
If you're looking into how to put a birthday countdown on Facebook, Instagram, other socials, or your website, you're in luck!
Source
The POWR widget offers this exact functionality but the flexibility to install timers that drive action, counting up or down, embedded anywhere you wish.
A birthday countdown app is a versatile tool for a vast range of promotions—and to create a sense of excitement, even if there's no cake or candles!
It's also a way to generate engagement, making your socials more vibrant with varied content and media.
Say you're sending a promotional email and want to stress that these prices aren't sticking around for long. Add a timer, and the message is loud and clear!
You can also grow social proof by buying Instagram followers using countdowns as a ticker, sales, responses, or other metrics.
Source
Let's run through a quick guide if you're unsure how to do a birthday countdown on Instagram.
It works like this:
Celebrating a special occasion is great, but here are a few suggestions showing the options to leverage a countdown app for your brand:
You can, of course, use a countdown app to announce your company's birthday, giving you an opening to create fresh content about how far you've come and the brand's success.
Source
Your countdown app is, in essence, a virtual clock, which you can set to count up or down.
Businesses report revenue increases of up to nine percent using this simple resource, so customizing your countdown timer and adding it to a web page, banner, or email is time well spent!
It's all about psychology and, in the social media world, #FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out!).
Timers generate curiosity and speed, but you don't need to use a countdown solely to convince your visitors to checkout before an offer expires.
Some alternatives can be:
This strategy puts your product or service in solid demand, making it instantly more desirable (recognize those 'only two left in stock messages from any massive global retail marketplaces?).It's pretty hard to ignore a moving countdown widget, so use these plugins for several purposes.
Conversion metrics jump when more customers find something on your site, app, or email marketing that generates a response, and a countdown feature is a simple way to go about it.
Source
As we've explained, you can embed the POWR countdown app anywhere without worrying about coding or web development.
There are heaps of templates to choose from, too, if you lack design inspiration!
Next is where to place your countdown timer to have the most significant impact.
Below we'll take a look at some of the popular options:
We should share a few pointers to avoid over-using countdown timers or placing them in the wrong spot.
For example, if every product in your store shows nearly sold out, it could give a wrong impression!
Likewise, countdowns that continually make consumers feel rushed can be stressful and aren't perceived as trustworthy if you always emphasize that a purchase deadline is approaching.
Using countdowns to enhance the customer experience, such as keeping your buyers informed about shopping times around festive holidays, is a perfect way to provide helpful content that will help drive higher revenue.
Alexandra | Dec 18, 2018
There’s this new interesting feature in your Insta Story. It’s called “Countdown”.
I’m going to show you how to use it and I will also share some cool tips, tricks and ideas.
But first, just to give you a general idea, this is how it roughly works:
They can choose to set a reminder for themselves to celebrate with you when your countdown is over, orWhat can you use the countdown feature for?
Here are some ideas (shoutout to our @preview.app fam for coming up with some of these awesome ideas!):
General countdown ideas:
Countdown ideas for businesses:
As you can see, the opportunities are endless.
Are you ready for the step-by-step tutorial now?
Let’s go.
Click here to use it
Take a photo or video. Or choose a photo or video from your phone’s camera roll.
Now go in your Sticker section and select the “Countdown” sticker.
If you want to set a specific time for your countdown, turn off the “All Day” button.
Press on the colorful circle at the top of your screen to change the color of your countdown box.
You can also choose if you want to allow people to follow and share your countdown. If you allow them, they will be able to turn on a reminder so they can receive a notification when your countdown is over.
This is awesome if you want people to celebrate your big day with you.
When you are ready, share your Insta Story.
What happens next?
This is what people see when they watch your Insta Story.
Your countdown is interactive. It means that your followers can join your countdown excitement. When they tap on your countdown, they can do 2 things:
What happens if they do one or the other thing?
People can turn on a reminder to receive a notification when your countdown is over. If they do, you will receive a notification in your notification center.
Your notification center is where you see who likes, comments and follows you.
At this stage, there is no other way to see who turns on the reminder for your countdown.
If people share your countdown in their Insta Stories, you will receive a notification in your DMs. And you will also be able to re-share their Insta Story in your Stories to spread the love even more.
The awesome thing about your Countdown is that it is saved in your Insta Story. It is not dead after your Story disappears in 24 hours. This means that you can re-share your countdown at anytime. Your countdown will automatically start where it should start.
For example, let’s say that today is the 1st of December and you have a big event starting on the 1st of January.
You share a countdown in your Story on the 1st of December. But remember, Stories disappear after 24 hours. So some of your followers might miss your countdown on the 1st of December. Or maybe, you want to post your countdown again everyday to build up the excitement but you don’t want to start a new countdown.
All you have to do is select the countdown sticker in your Insta Stories, and select your countdown from the 1st of December (instead of creating a new one). Pretty cool right?
If you start using the countdown sticker a lot, you will accumulate a lot of countdowns. The good news is that you can delete your old countdowns.
To delete:
Done!
I hope you found this tutorial useful. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask in the comments.
Until next time, see you on Instagram!
Click here to use it
Instagram Stories has a new sticker with which you can start the countdown. And your subscribers will be able to get a notification when the time is up. Let's take a closer look at how it works!
Countdown is an interactive sticker that you can now use in the Stories section. This sticker is needed so that you can specify the number of days, hours and minutes before any event. For example, before your birthday, new year or until Friday evening 😀
To do this, click on the camera button in the upper left corner when browsing the news feed.
Create any Story you want: you can take a picture or record a video. You can also choose something from the Gallery.
To do this, click on the smiley icon at the top.
Usually it is on the third line from the top.
In order for your subscribers to better understand what your timer means, you need to specify the name of the countdown or write some kind of call to action.
For example, in the context of my Countdown, I would write a specific event like this:
Important! You can write no more than 2 lines in the title. The number of characters depends on which letters and/or numbers you will use.
Now we need to specify when exactly the countdown will end. To do this, click on the numbers of the sticker.
Next, sequentially select the month and day when the countdown should end.
If you want to specify a specific time, then you need to uncheck the box "All day" at the bottom right.
And then specify hours and minutes.
Important! If you want people to be able to turn on your countdown reminder and share this Story with friends, check the box.
It can be moved like a regular sticker. You can tilt it, shrink it or enlarge it.
Done! You have created your first Story with a Countdown sticker. Now all your subscribers will see it.
Users who see your Story can click on the Countdown. Then they can turn on a reminder or share your Story. Or do both.
This is how the repost of your Countdown Story will look like:
After the countdown expires, all users who have turned on reminders will receive a notification:
🛍 Method 1. Stock! If you have your own business and you develop it on Instagram, then the Countdown will be very useful for promotions that have time limits.
Announce a sale on your products or services before the end of this week and see how it works.
🎉 Method 2. Holiday! If you or your friends have a birthday soon, then start the Countdown so that everyone can prepare gifts and don't forget to congratulate you.
✅ Method 3. Contest results! Let your followers see a Countdown timer that will tell you when the contest on your page will end. This motivates them to participate in the competition.
🔴 Method 4. Broadcast announcement! If you regularly conduct online broadcasts with presentations of your products and services, or simply communicate with your audience on broadcasts, then you can start the Countdown to the next broadcast. All your subscribers will receive a notification in time that the broadcast has started.
💪🏻 Method 5. Challenge! The next time you decide to lose weight start a challenge and post a Countdown in your Stories.
For example, start a countdown to show how many days you have left until the final day of weight loss.
⏰ Method 6. Events in life. Surely you have different kinds of events in your life. For example: you are preparing for a trip to the sea or to a conference. Maybe you ordered pizza and are waiting for friends. Start the Countdown timer so that everyone can see how much time is left before you fly away to the sea or finish eating your pizza.
Instagram added a new sticker to the stories section. In anticipation of the new year, a countdown appeared in Instagram Stories. This is the dial of an electronic clock on which you can set the countdown to a specific date and time.
Understanding how to add a new sticker to your Story and how to use it.
Advertisement: 2Vtzqxi7Yrq
Read also: How to promote your Instagram
Let's start adding stories, as we usually do.
Select a photo or video that will serve as a background for the countdown counter. We will make a counter with a countdown to the New Year. Accordingly, we select a picture of the New Year theme.
Then tap the sticker icon at the top of the screen. A window will open with a selection of different stickers: geolocation, hashtag, and others. Among them we find the countdown sticker and click on it. It will be added to our history.
Now you need to configure its display.
Text on the clock. In our case, this will be the inscription "Left before the New Year:". You can write whatever your heart desires. Until my birthday left, until the end of the action left, discounts will still apply .. and more. To change the text, simply click on the counter again.
Set the end date and time to . Click on the corresponding inscription at the bottom of the sticker. Select the day to which the countdown will be made.
We chose December 31, 2018. It remains to set the time. To do this, below, put the switch opposite the "All day" field to the OFF position and specify the time. We delivered until 24.00, that is, until 12 midnight.
Please note that if more than 24 hours is left before the end of the countdown , then it will be shown: days, hours and minutes . After less than a day remains before the end of , the dial shows hours, minutes and seconds .
Colour. By clicking on the colored circle above the countdown, you can change its color.
After you have set up the counters and added all the necessary story elements, click share. Can be shared with all subscribers, with a list of best friends or send the Story to direct.
Instagram did not officially announce the innovation, so the function can only be available to certain users.
