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How to find highlights on instagram


What Are Instagram Highlights and How to Use Them on Your Profile

Instagram Stories are ephemeral pieces of content that get deleted from your profile after 24 hours. However, there’s a way to retain them through Highlights. In this post we explain what Highlights are and how you can add them on your profile.

Content
  • What Are Instagram Highlights?
  • How to Add Highlights to Your Profile
  • How to Create a Highlight
  • How to Add a Current Story to Highlights
  • How to Add More Stories to Highlights
  • How to Delete Highlights from Your Profile
  • How to Customize Highlight Covers
  • Need Some Inspiration?
  • Frequently Asked Questions

What Are Instagram Highlights?

Highlights is a feature in Instagram that lets you group the Stories you’ve shared in the past and features them on your profile. You can find the Highlights section just underneath the bio section.

Even as Stories usually encompass less polished material compared to posts, you may still be proud of some of the Stories you’ve posted and would enjoy seeing them on your profile. This is where Highlights steps in.

How to Add Highlights to Your Profile

Adding Highlights to your profile is very easy, provided you have a library of past Stories to fall back on. This entails that you have the Stories Archive feature enabled. The option is usually on by default in your mobile app, but you can check to make sure that’s the case by following these steps.

  1. From your profile page, tap on the hamburger menu in the upper-right corner of the display.
  1. Select “Settings” from the menu that appears from the bottom.
  1. Go to “Privacy.”
  1. Select “Story.”
  1. Scroll down until you find the “Saving” section. The “Save Story to Archive” option should be enabled. Alternatively, you may opt to turn “Save Story to Gallery” on, but that’s not required to start creating Highlights.

Now that you’ve ensured that Archiving is on, you can go ahead and start creating Highlights.

How to Create a Highlight

  1. Open your profile in the Instagram app.
  2. Underneath your profile information you should see the “Story Highlights” option. If you haven’t added any until now, you’ll need to tap on the downward arrow to view the hidden menu.
  1. Tap on “New” to add your very first group of Highlights.
  1. Select the Stories you want to group under a Highlight, then press “Next.”
  1. On the next screen, you’ll have to type in a name to describe that group of Stories.
  1. You’ll also notice the option to “Edit cover,” which will be the image that will be shown in the Highlight bubble displayed on your profile. You can use one of the Stories you’ve selected for this Highlight group or upload another one from your camera roll.
  1. Press “Done.”

The Highlight has now been added to your profile. The full collection of Stories will be visible once you press on the specific bubble underneath your profile information.

It’s worth noting that you can create Reels directly from your Highlights panel. Once a Highlight has been created, press on the respective bubble that shows up on your profile.

Tap “Create” at the bottom. You will be able to shoot a new Reel or use any older clips you have saved to your camera roll, but the results won’t be added to your Highlights. Instead, they will be posted to your Profile, as usual.

How to Add a Current Story to Highlights

If you have a Story that is currently running and wish to add it to a Highlight group, you can do so without having to revert back to your Profile.

  1. Open the Story you want to add to your Highlights.
  2. Tap on the “Highlights” button at the bottom.
  1. Select the group of Highlights you want to add the Story to. You can even create a new Highlight from scratch from this menu.

That’s it! The Story has been added to the targeted group.

How to Add More Stories to Highlights

Suppose you forgot to add a few Stories to one of your Highlights, or you had a recent Story running that perfectly fits one of the categories of your Highlights. Not to worry, as you can easily add it to your profile.

  1. Tap the Highlight you want to add more content to.
  2. Tap on the three dots in the lower-right corner of the display.
  1. Select “Edit Highlight.”
  1. Tap on “Stories.”
  1. Select the Stories you wish to add.
  2. Tap “Done.”

The new Stories will be added to that specific Highlight.

How to Delete Highlights from Your Profile

If you want to remove a Highlight from your profile, that’s totally OK. You can do that very easily.

  1. Locate the Highlight you want to delete from your Instagram profile.
  2. Long-press on it until a list of options shows up from the bottom.
  1. Select “Delete Highlight,” and that specific collection of Stories will disappear from your profile.
  2. Alternatively, you can remove specific Stories from the Highlight album. To do so, press on the Highlight bubble and find the Story you wish to remove.
  3. Tap on the three dots in the lower-right corner.
  1. Press on the “Remove from Highlight” option at the top.
  1. The Story will be removed from the group.

While you can’t create new Highlights from your PC or add any new Stories to the groups you’ve created, you can delete individual Stories from a Highlight.

All you have to do is click on the Highlight, then select the three dots in the upper-right corner and select “Delete.”

How to Customize Highlight Covers

Instagram Highlights is a great tool that allows you to organize your content based on topics and categories, then places it at the forefront of your profile. If you’re a brand, using this feature can be even more crucial, as it enables you to expand your interactions with your customer base. With this in mind, you can use Highlights to do a number of things:

  • Share additional information about your brand
  • Share tips and tricks
  • Promote deals
  • Show off customer testimonials and reviews
  • Publish Q&A or polls

By default, Instagram picks one of the photos included in Highlights to be the group’s cover image. If, however, you want to go for a more polished or artsy look, you should know that you can find and download unique Highlight cover templates online. Below we’ve listed three tools that allow you to download such templates for free:

  • Canva – Canva is a website that puts a pretty large library of Highlights cover templates at your disposal. You can even edit these designs if you find elements that you don’t like, or if you think you can enhance them somehow. All you have to do to get access to the content is log in with an account (Gmail/Facebook).
  • VistaCreate – This is another website that offers access to many unique cover templates for Highlights. There’s also the option to customize the creations already available so that you can add your own touch. Once again you’ll have to log in with an account.
  • Highlight Cover Maker – This mobile app offers easy access to a wide selection of templates, not only for Instagram Highlights. Users can download them as they are or quickly edit them.

Need Some Inspiration?

If you don’t know where to start when it comes to setting up your Highlights, all you need to do is look around you for some inspiration. There are countless accounts doing Highlights right, and for the most part, they seem to match their Highlight covers with the general feel and look of the profile. Here are a couple of examples of profiles that impressed us. As you can see, they range from simple to the more complex.

Design Therapy

Francisco Fonseca

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How many Highlights can you add to your Instagram profile?

Instagram hasn’t imposed any limits, so in theory, you can add as many as you want. There’s a limit, however, to how many Stories you can include in a single Highlight: 100.

2. Can I see who viewed by Highlights, just like Stories?

If you have a Story that is currently running and have included it in a Highlight, you’ll be able to see who has viewed it so far. After 24 hours, this information will no longer be available. When it comes to older Highlights, it’s not possible to see who has viewed them.

3. Do your Highlights disappear after 24 hours in a similar fashion as Stories?

No, you can keep them for as long as you like on your profile. If you’d like to get rid of them, you’ll have to manually delete them.

Now that you know how to keep Instagram Stories around for longer, maybe you’ll be more inclined to put more effort into creating your next ones. If that’s the case, then you should check out our list of the best apps for creating unique Instagram Stories. Additionally, knowing how to download Instagram Stories and Highlights may also come in handy.

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Everything You Need to Know About

What do people see first when they open your Instagram profile?

Your bio information and of course right below one of the most useful Instagram features, the Instagram stories highlights!

They are front and center on your profile, serving as the perfect indicators to show users what your brand is all about. You can have the best Instagram stories that you re-share from your followers and build a perfect user-generated content highlight as social proof for your brand’s quality.

Unlike Instagram Stories that disappear after 24 hours, Instagram Stories Highlights can live permanently on your profile.  This is why you should consider spending some time planning on how to apply them to showcase and promote your brand.

In this guide, you will learn all you need to know to create Instagram Highlights that will help you stand out from the crowd.

What’s inside:

show

  • 1. What are Instagram Story Highlights?
  • 2. How to Create Instagram Highlight?
  • 3. Why Instagram Highlights are so Important?
  • 4. How to add Instagram Highlights covers or icons?
  • 5. How to design Instagram Highlights Cover Icons
  • 6. Instagram Highlights examples to get inspired
  • 7. Tips for creating effective Instagram Story Highlight covers
  • 8. How to display Instagram Highlight on your website?

1. What are Instagram Story Highlights?

We all know that Instagram stories disappear in 24 hours. And, in order to give the option for the users to save some of the stories and make them visible as a pin in their profile, Instagram has provided a feature called Highlights. The feature allows you to keep your stories content on your Instagram feed as long as you want.

Instagram Highlights are groups of stories that you can create as folder sections on your Instagram profiles.

This means that once you post a story you can save it in a Highlight (like a folder) that will display on your Instagram profile, or you can activate the Archive option that will automatically save Instagram stories and in the future create highlights from the saved stories in your archive.

The main attributes of the Highlights are:

  • Highlights covers – option to add a custom image or an icon that will represent the topic of the stories that are saved inside;
  • Highlights name – option to name the Highlight the same as you do with naming folders.

Note that, once you create the Highlights they appear in your Instagram profile screen right below your bio text and profile photo.

FYI: You can embed Instagram widget automatically with EmbedSocial’s UGC platform.  Start a free trial and display your social media widgets now. 

2. How to Create Instagram Highlight?

As mentioned above, you have two ways how to create an Instagram Story Highlights:

  • Create Highlight from the active story – Post a story and manually save it in a Highlight
  • Create Highlight from archived stories – If you have the Archive option activated, your stories will save automatically in your archive section, and in the future, you can choose which stories to be organized in a Highlight.

Let me show you how to create a Highlight with the first option:

Create Highlight from the active story

If you have an active story and you want to make sure this story is added to a Highlight just follow these steps:

  1. Tap on the active story to view it
  2. Tap the bottom option Highlight
  3. Tap the plus icon to create new Highlight
  4. Enter the name of the new Highlight
  5. Tap the blue buttons Add
Create Highlight from an active Instagram Story

Once you do this, your new Highlight will appear on your profile photo and your followers will be able to view it even after the 24 hour story lifetime.

Create Highlight from the archived stories

There is a possibility to create highlights from the stories archive as well. Using the story controls and options you can pull the stories you save to archive. 

To add Instagram stories from your archive to a highlight and pin them on your profile, follow the steps below:

  1. Go to your Instagram profile and tap Story Highlights below bio
  2. Tap the plus icon
  3. In the new window, tap and select the stories you want to appear in the Highlight and tap Next.
  4. Tap ‘Edit Cover’ to choose which story will appear as a Highlight icon or just upload an icon
  5. Enter a name for your Highlight
  6. Tap Add (iPhone) or Done (Android).

How to add more stories in a current Highlight

You can add more photos or videos to your highlight at any time by following these steps:

  1. Go to your profile and hold your finger pressed on the Highlight you want to edit
  2. Tap Edit Highlight
  3. Choose the stories you want to add and tap Done

Also in this ‘Edit Highlight’ screen, it’s text and it’s the cover image. And if you want to delete the Highlight, just press and hold on to the Highlight you want to delete and choose the option ‘Delete Highlight’.

3. Why Instagram Highlights are so Important?

Instagram Stories have become one of the main channels for brands to connect, engage, and gain real results from their digital marketing activities. Understanding Instagram stories for business can be one of your main competitive advantages for your 2020 marketing activities.

Therefore, having hard-produced story videos or images, saved for future followers to view at any time, make the Highlights feature very important for the community managers and digital marketers.

The main reasons why you need to use Instagram Highlights, are the following:

  • Use this new format to tell an ongoing story
  • Make the content of your stories accessible to new followers
  • Educate them about your previous activities posted in the stories
  • Showcase your products or services, in a structured and categorized way
  • Provide library format of useful content that you’ve already shared

4.

How to add Instagram Highlights covers or icons?

The covers and the text of the Instagram Highlights are gaining huge popularity due to the fact that these small icons are the first thing a new visitor to your Instagram profile will see.

You will notice that the cover images are usually the images in the stories that you’ve selected for that particular Highlight. But, this tutorial, will show you how to change the Highlights covers without sharing them in a story.

Before you start, please add the icon images in your phone’s camera roll and follow these steps.

  1. Go to your profile and hold your finger to the Highlight you want to edit
  2. Tap Edit Highlight
  3. Tap Edit Cover
  4. Choose the photo from your camera roll
  5. Tap Done

That’s it! Now you have your Instagram highlight covers!

As for your other social media and Instagram feed, you can also design your own free icons for your Instagram stories.

For this challenge, I will definitely recommend Canva.

It is a very easy tool and it already has predefined icons that you can easily re-use to make Instagram highlights covers.

You will only need to follow the steps below, and in a very fast time you will be able to create your highlight covers:

  1. Open Canva and click Create a design
  2. Choose the Instagram story format
  3. Choose any template, delete its content and change the background color
  4. Go to Elements and in the search field type icon. Choose the preferred icon, set it in the middle and choose its color
  5. Share this design to your email and save it to your phone’s camera roll

Once you want to change the cover, just choose this icon from your phone’s camera roll.

6. Instagram Highlights examples to get inspired

Once you know how you want to create the icons, you will need to make a plan for the overall design of the Highlights section.  

This is a current trend, and as you are probably aware you want to make sure people coming to your profile click on these icons and check your great Instagram stories.

In the following section, you can find some interesting ideas on how to organize the Instagram stories and design the Highlights covers.

Here are few Highlights covers for inspiration:

1. Glossier Inc. is a people-powered beauty ecosystem – they use pink color only for their profile image (not a logo) and for the Highlights covers they use only blank–white images or product-line images. Very minimalistic and very different than other accounts, which usually use icons or some product images.overs they use only blank–white images. Very minimalistic and very different than other accounts, which usually use icons or some product images.

2. Carrots n Cake Flexible Macro Plans & Coaching – provides a very indebted structure about their content published via Instagram stories and uses all light-orange icons with the same layout to represent all different categories of the Highlights.

3. Starbucks Coffee – they use real people photos as they use real people photos or cute green product images as cover icons for the Highlights. This appeal brings the design of their profile to life and it makes the visitors feel the user-friendliness of the profile.

7. Tips for creating effective Instagram Story Highlight covers

Instagram highlights popularity has definitely resulted in them being an essential element of every Instagram profile.

So, to make sure you keep up with the latest trends, we combined some tips with real examples to showcase how you can design the Highlight covers to get the best of this Instagram feature.

Tip 1: Be innovative. Use words instead of icons or vice versa

When creating Highlight icons, make sure it is in line with your brand identity but still have fun, and try to be as innovative as possible to make that small space eyecatching.

For example, see how Instagram for business is doing this.

They use their colors but not for designing the cover icons.

They’ve literally swiped the spaces.

They use the actual icons for cover icons. Cool right?!

Tip 2: Use bold icons and text to emphasize your highlights

Take a look at how the French beauty chain Sephora is doing this.

They use simple, but cute icons to demonstrate their activities on Instagram, from posting stories about new products or categorizing these stories by a product type.

Tip 3: Use your brand colors

To make your profile have a cohesive look and keep your brand voice, try including your brand kit in your Instagram highlights covers.

See how the American chain of restaurants Shake Shack is doing this.

They use simple icons with green graphics to present their company activities.

Tip 4: Showcase your product/services

Highlights are a good way to show Instagram users what you offer.

Check out how Florence by Mills does this. The cosmetics brand crafts eye-catching highlights (that also match their brand colors) to present their products and services.

Tip 5: Use your brand ambassadors

See how Nike Women does that in practice.

The famous footwear corporation includes famous athletes as their brand ambassadors in their main story highlights covers.

The actual covers are a photo of the athlete and the name of the Highlight is her name.

8. How to display Instagram Highlight on your website?

Once you are done crafting your unique Instagram highlights, why not show your creativity on your website too?

Please note that at this moment Instagram does not have an API that will allow third-party tools to directly sync the websites with your Instagram Highlights.

The good news is that there are tools like EmbedStories that can display Instagram stories on any website.

This means that you can embed Instagram Highlights but only for the stories that are already generated in the EmbedStories platform.

The archived stories can be uploaded manually by using the upload option for a custom story that you can later add to your stories Highlights menu.

For any information on how to embed Instagram Highlights on your website, feel free to chat with us.

—

In summary, Instagram highlights help brands catch the eye of their followers and keep them engaged in a more creative way. 

And from the looks of it, Instagram highlights popularity isn’t going to vanish anytime soon.

Use that wisely!

32 Tricks and Features You Should Know

These Instagram Stories hacks will save you time and make you the best story maker in town (no kidding).

It's simple math: if a picture is worth a thousand words, a story post should be worth a million, right?

500 million people access Instagram Stories every day. And in 2021, companies will have more opportunities than ever before.

Some may say that there are too many functions.

That's why we've narrowed down our favorite tricks and little-known features to 32. These are the best time-saving tricks that will make you look like a pro at Stories and ensure you're taking full advantage of the platform.

General Stories Hacks

1. To repost a feed post, create a patterned background

Do I need to add a special background when you post a feed post in your story? God, of course not. But it's like putting on lipstick for a Zoom meeting. Sometimes it's just nice to add a little brightness to the ordinary.

How to:

  1. Find the post you want to share in your feed and take a screenshot, cropping it so it's just a post.
  2. Then click the paper airplane icon on the original post in the feed and select Add Post to Story.
  3. Stretch the post image to fill the entire screen. I know it seems wild, but this will turn the last post into a clickable link to the original post.
  4. Then open the gallery and add the chosen background.
  5. Overlay the cropped image of the post on top or resize it to your liking.
  6. Publish all this.
2. Add a link to the History

Unfortunately, links are only available to users with more than 10,000 subscribers.

But once you hit that mark, you'll be able to add one link per story, and your lucky multiple followers will be able to swipe up to go to the URL.

link to scroll up. Web link. Users will be able to swipe up to go to this site. Go to preview. branded content. Tag a business partner. Allow business partner to advertise.

How to:

  1. Make sure you have 10,000 or more subscribers to access this feature.
  2. Create a new story post.
  3. Click the link icon at the top of the page.
  4. You can add an IGTV video link or web link URL.
  5. Click "Done", a message "Call to action added" will appear for confirmation.
  6. If you need to edit or delete a link, simply click the link icon again.
  7. Finish editing or creating a story and publish it.
3. Link your story WITHOUT 10,000 followers using IGTV

If you didn't pass the account verification and verification or you don't have 10,000 followers, don't worry. You can still add a link to your story with this workaround.

How to add a link to your story if you don't have 10000 followers:

  1. Record a short IGTV video that draws people's attention to the title, ie. invite people to click on the title of the video to get a link.
  2. Add a link in your IGTV title.
  3. Post a video on your IGTV channel.
  4. Now open Instagram Stories.
  5. Click the link icon at the top of the screen.
  6. Select + IGTV Video
  7. Select the IGTV video from the link you just created.

That's it!

People will be able to swipe up to watch your video and click on the link in the IGTV header.

4. Fill the background with a solid color

The default gradient backgrounds are nice, but sometimes you have something to say that can only be framed by a wall of stunning light green.

How to:

  1. Click the draw icon.
  2. Choose a color from the palette (tip: swipe right to see more color options, or press and hold any specific color to open a gradient for selection).
  3. After you select a color, press anywhere on the image or text on the screen for two or three seconds to fill in the background.

5. Discover even more colors! More!

You are greedy, but we do not judge. In fact, you have access to all the colors of the rainbow and some of the Instagram stories. Find your brand's shades or have some fun with a dubious shade of lavender.

How to:

  1. Open Instagram Stories and select the brush tool.
  2. Press and hold any of the default color circles. This will open the color slider.
  3. Try different colors in the slider to find the color of your dreams!
  4. Alternatively, place the image in the story and use the eyedropper to select the appropriate shade.

6.
Use a green screen in your Instagram story

Green screen technology has changed the rules of the social media game. You can visit anywhere. Including the moon. Especially the moon.

How to do it:

  1. Scroll right through the filters at the bottom of the screen to get to the magnifier; click it to search.
  2. Search for "green screen" and select the Instagram green screen filter.
  3. Click "Add Media" to select a background video or photo from your phone's image gallery.
  4. Take a picture or video of this fake background.

Instagram's teleportation feature is also interesting ー it uses a green screen, but it only appears when you move the device, so you can create a funny effect. (You're in your bedroom... and then you're on tour with Destiny's Child! Wow!)

7. Share with a select group of VIPs

Now that your boss, your Uncle Steve, and your strategy board president follow you on Insta, the pressure of looking like a professional employee/niece/nice neighbor can really be holding back your very best. and stupid thoughts on Instagram.

Instagram's Close Friends feature ー is the ability to share more personal, exclusive content with a select group (sorry, Uncle Steve!). For businesses, this may be a way to offer special deals to attendees or VIPs (which, again, probably doesn't include Uncle Steve).

How to:

  1. Go to your Instagram profile, click on the menu with horizontal stripes in the top corner.
  2. Select Close Friends.
  3. Find your best friends and click "Add" (there is currently no limit on the number of people that can be on the list).
  4. To remove people, click Your List and the Remove button (don't worry, they won't be notified if they are removed from the list).
  5. Now when you go to share your story, the option to share with close friends will be visible at the bottom of the screen next to your story.

8. Schedule your Instagram Stories ahead of time

We know that Stories should be a spontaneous content format. But do you really sit at your desk or talk on the phone all day? Not! You live your life so that you have something to create Instagram stories about.

You can't actually schedule Stories directly on Instagram… but as of May 2021, you can schedule Instagram Stories through Facebook Business Suite!

How to: Check out a step-by-step guide to scheduling your stories with Hootsuite.

9. Add a layer of translucent color to a video or photo

Maybe you see life through rose-colored glasses and want other people to see it too. It's as simple as that: use this quick trick to color your images or videos.

How to:

  1. Upload or capture a video or photo.
  2. Touch the marker icon at the top of the screen.
  3. Select the marker icon at the top of the screen.
  4. Select the desired color at the bottom of the screen.
  5. Press and hold the photo until a layer of translucent color appears on top of it.

10.
Post multiple stories at once

As any social media professional knows, properly preparing, editing, or selecting the elements of a multi-episode story can take some time. But maybe you don't want to leave your followers hanging while you're looking for the perfect background color or sticker combination for Part 2 of your local boat show coverage.

The solution is to prepare multiple story posts and post them all at the same time (in the order you choose, of course) using Instagram's Multishot tool.

How to:

  1. Open Instagram Stories and scroll down to find the Multishot tool (a circle surrounded by another dotted circle).
  2. Take a photo (note: you cannot upload photos or create videos in this mode). You will see the frame added to the little circle in the bottom left corner or at the bottom of the screen.
  3. Take up to 9 additional photos for a total of 10. Each photo will form the basis of a separate Story post.
  4. When you're done, click on the little circle (in the left corner if you're using a filter, or at the bottom of the screen if you're not) to start editing.
  5. Here you can have a good time adding text, stickers, music or effects to each photo.
  6. Ready to publish? Click next.

11. Add Music to Instagram Story

Your story needs a soundtrack! Very needed.

How to:

  1. Record a video, take a picture, or upload content.
  2. In the edit screen, touch the note icon at the top of the screen.
  3. Select a song.
  4. On the edit screen, you have several options for customizing music playback or visualization:
  5. Scroll through the list of options at the bottom to display lyrics or album art.
  6. Touch the color wheel at the top of the screen to change the color of any piece of text.
  7. Touch the circled number to set the duration of the clip.
  8. At the very bottom of the screen, scroll to select the part of the song you want to play.
  9. When you return to the edit screen, use two fingers to zoom in on album art or text. (Tip: if you don't want them to show up at all, squeeze the element as hard as you can and stick a sticker on top of it!)

Stories Photo Hacks

12.
Create progressive posts from a single image

Expand the drama across multiple Story posts by adding new elements to the same base image. Oooh, intrigue!

How to:

  1. Create a story post as usual with videos, photos, text, stickers or drawings.
  2. Before posting, click the save icon (down arrow located above the line) at the top to upload your composition to the gallery (if you have added any gifs or music, the story will be saved as a video).
  3. Upload the story by clicking the "Submit" button in the lower right corner.
  4. Then start a new story.
  5. Select "Create", then go to the gallery and select the first saved story.
  6. Now you can discreetly add something on top of the first story with additional elements.
  7. Save this new creation to your gallery.
  8. Repeat if necessary.

13. Create a series of reveal stories

Use the eraser to unravel the mysterious image. This move incorporates the skills from #3 and #7 above. I hope you did your homework because it's a test.

How to:

  1. Add an image in story mode.
  2. Now fill the screen with color (see step #3!).
  3. Select the Eraser tool.
  4. Erase some of the color layer to reveal a small stripe of the image underneath.
  5. Click the save button to save this to the gallery...but don't post the story yet.
  6. Show some more of the image by continuing to erase the color layer by pressing the save button at different stages to capture the opening step by step.
  7. When you've finished collecting all of these images, start a new Story post and upload the very first image.
  8. Post the following saved images one by one so that your followers can see the image being revealed in stages.

Guess what I'm having for lunch

14. Create cool effects with the eraser

A few strategic strokes of the eraser can create the illusion of merging a photo and other elements into one. Harmoniously! Inspirational! This is art?

How to:

  1. Open the photo you want to edit.
  2. Use the marker tool (we love neon) to create a visual that overlaps the center object in your photo.
  3. Now use the eraser tool to erase the part of the marker strip that overlaps the main object. It will look like the painted pieces are wrapped around. Optical illusion!

15. Make a story with multiple pictures

More pictures, more fun! Use the Insert tool to add as many photos as you want to your story. Who dares to stop you?!

How to do it:

  1. Open the gallery and select a photo.
  2. Click Share and Copy Photo.
  3. Back in the Instagram app, tap the text box and select Paste.
  4. Repeat to place the photo on top of the others.

16. Use the Photobooth function

You're a model, baby! Instagram's new Photobooth feature will take four shots in a row, which can then be shown in a variety of dynamic formats. (There are a lot of blinking camera flashes, we are warning you right now).

How to:

  1. Open Stories and scroll down. Find the Photobooth tool (an icon that looks like a stack of photos).
  2. Select a filter if you wish, and then press the shutter button. A 3-2-1 countdown will start for each of the four shots...
  3. On the preview screen, you can add music ("Covergirl" by RuPaul ー the only correct choice, by the way) or tap the "Photobooth" icon at the top again to choose from several various formats. For example, a film that looks like an old film.

17. Create boomerangs from live photos

Have you captured a moment with your iPhone that you want to relive and then relive by rewinding? And then forward? And then back again?

If you have taken a photo in Live Photo format, this is possible. (If you don't know how to take a live photo, just open the camera app and tap the concentric circles at the top!)

How to:

  1. Open Stories and swipe up to view the photo gallery.
  2. Select a live photo.
  3. Hold down the photo until the word Boomerang appears.

Stories text hacks

18. Hide hashtags and @ mentions

Keep the posting aesthetic by removing non-glowing hashtags or tags from view. It's the digital equivalent of hiding electrical cords behind a mid-century modern desk before the guys from Architecture and Design magazine walk in on you.

How to:

Method 1

  1. Enter hashtags and mentions.
  2. Click the stickers button and select a gallery.
  3. Add an image from the gallery to be placed over the hashtags to hide them.
  4. Resize the image to fit on the screen: Instagram technically sees the hashtags, but human eyes can't!

Method 2

  1. If you're starting your post from an image, add a text box at the top and enter hashtags and mentions.
  2. While the text field is still active, press the color wheel at the top of the screen.
  3. Touch the pipette icon.
  4. Touch an area in the photo to change the text color to the same color and blur the borders.
  5. Resize the text field if necessary.

19. Express yourself with more fonts

Stories Standard Fonts ー this is just the tip of the typographic iceberg.

If the app's built-in typewriter font or Comic Sans imitation doesn't work, find something more interesting.

How to:

  1. Go to the Instagram Font Generator website on your computer or mobile device.
  2. Enter text and press Enter to see font options.
  3. Copy and paste into the History text box.

Pro Tip: If you have a branded font, add text directly to the image using Photoshop, Over, or another image editing app, then upload it to Instagram Stories from there.

20. Layer the text to add a shadow effect.

How to:

  1. Enter your text, then select everything and copy.
  2. Start a new text field and paste this text.
  3. With the text still selected, click on the color wheel at the top and choose a different color.
  4. Move this text slightly and layer it under the original text so it looks like a shadow.

21. Change text alignment in a second

Tinder skills can be put to good use here: a quick swipe of text will move it left, right, or back to center in the blink of an eye.

How to: While typing, quickly swipe left or right to change the alignment.

Instagram sticker hacks

22. Turn your story into a shopping spree

If you have an Instagram store, you can tag one product with a product sticker in each Instagram story.

When customers want to know more about the cool hamster print vest, they will simply click on the sticker and head to your store to start their shopping spree.

How to:

  1. Create an Instagram story and tap the sticker icon.
  2. Select Product.
  3. Select an item from your product catalog.
  4. Customize the product sticker to match your brand.

23. Change the color of the question sticker

To match colors or not to match? That's the question...or rather, the question is what to do with the question sticker.

How to:

  1. Touch the sticker icon and select Question.
  2. Enter a question and click on the color wheel at the top of the screen.
  3. Keep pressing until the question sticker is the color you want.

What color should I choose for this sticker?

24. Access more gifs than ever

If there are too many gifs, we don't want to hear it.

While Insta search lets you browse the Giphy library, using the Giphy app itself lets you create albums of your favorite GIFs for easy access ー and you can share them directly from Giphy.

How to:

  1. Open the Giphy app and find the right animation.
  2. Click the paper airplane share icon (or the heart icon if you want to favorite the GIF and post later).
  3. Click the Instagram icon and then select Share to Stories.
  4. OR select "Copy GIF" and then paste the gif into your story.

Pro tip: If you have some gifs you made that you want to share in Stories, save them to your gallery, then just copy and paste directly into your story.

25. Create a photo collage

The built-in collage feature for Stories ー is the perfect way to share multiple images in various neatly organized collages formatted according to specific Stories sizes. Sometimes you just can't decide which photo of your sushi dinner is the cutest, we get it!

How to do it:

  1. Scroll to the left of the screen and find the Collage tool (a square with lines).
  2. The screen will now be divided into quadrants. Add a photo from the gallery to the first area by swiping up, or use the camera to take a new photo.
  3. Repeat for each quadrant.
  4. You can also change the layout by clicking the Change Grid icon on the left side of the screen.

Video hacks in Stories

26. Answer questions live in Stories

Answering subscribers' questions live is like having a fun interview with yourself.

How to:

  1. Before starting the Q&A, ask the audience questions using the Questions sticker.
  2. After you go live, tap the question mark icon at the bottom of the screen.
  3. Touch the question you want to answer and it will be displayed on the screen during the broadcast.
  4. Questions will be grayed out after they are selected to prevent you from selecting the same question again.
27. Attach a sticker to the video

This is one of the oldest tricks in the stories, but we are not too ashamed to admit that its mechanics have baffled us over the years. If you also really wanted to attach a sticker, emoji, GIF or text to a specific moment or movement in the video, here is a detailed description.

How to do it:

  1. This is important: make a video in Stories. You cannot upload a video for this trick! We've tried and failed.
  2. Add a sticker (or text, etc.) to the Story.
  3. Press and hold this sticker.
  4. Use the slider to scroll the video to the desired mark.
  5. Click Pin.

28. Create your own Instagram filter

You don't have to be a programmer to create a filter for yourself or share it with the world. Spark AR Studio has plenty of guides and easy step-by-step tools to help you make your mark on the world (and in particular on the faces of your followers).

How to: Get a complete guide to creating your own AR filters for Instagram here.

29. Save your favorite filters

You want your Elf Ears filter right at your fingertips, we get it. Fortunately, there is a way to create a library of your favorite effects with quick access.

How to:

  1. Open the camera in Stories.
  2. Swipe across the filters at the bottom of the screen until you reach the end.
  3. Tap the magnifying glass icon labeled Effects Gallery.
  4. Find an effect you like and click the bookmark icon.
  5. The next time you open the camera, this effect will be available for selection.
  6. If you see an effect you like in someone else's story, click on the effect's name (at the top of the screen) to save it from there.

30. Use video as an animated background

Imagine this: a dynamic, moving background for a great selfie or boring product photo. There is only one word for this elegant combination of animated and still images: jazzy.

How to:

  1. Record a video or swipe up to select a video from the gallery.
  2. Open the sticker menu.
  3. Choose a photo sticker.
  4. Select a photo from the gallery.
  5. This will be a layer on top of the video: move the photo or resize it however you like!

31.
Become an Instagram Reels master

The Instagram Reels feature can be a bit of a TikTok imitation, but it's still fun.

Create a 15 or 30 second multi-clip video with music, special effects and stickers and surprise your followers with dancing. You can share videos in Stories, but they will also appear on the Explore page, so you can impress even more people with Celine Dion's backing track.

How to: Check out the Instagram Reels guide here! (in English)

32. Use templates and design tools to make your stories pop

Sure, a great cook can make delicious food with just a knife and a frying pan… but a kitchen full of tools makes it a lot easier cooking gourmet meals.

Likewise, moving away from the basic elements of Stories and adding design and editing apps to your creative process will open up a whole new world of possibilities.

Is this a good metaphor or am I just hungry? Download some apps and we'll check back after lunch.

How to:

  1. Try some of these fun Instagram Stories apps to take your images and videos to the next level.
  2. Download these Instagram Stories templates and customize them for yourself.

Source

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13 life hacks for Instagram Stories

Instagram stories seem to be as simple and intuitive as the social network itself.

However, not all of its features and functions are immediately visible, and even experienced SMM specialists do not know about some of them.

We've found 13 cool features that will make your job easier.

1. Find out how many people shared your post in story

You can find out this data, which is not shown in the statistics, by going to the post itself and clicking on the three dots. There should appear the item “view reposts of stories”.

If you don't see it, it means that there are currently no active stories with reposts of your publication.

This feature will help you understand how users react to content or determine how much they like a new product from their comments on the repost.

2.Insert image

Copy images directly from the camera roll on your phone.

Just click “copy” and then go to instagram, open the story, press and hold your finger until the “paste” option appears.

Or download the Google Gboard keyboard and insert images directly from the search.

3. Make a live photo boomerang

This life hack is the least known of our list.

But to make a boomerang, you just need to upload a live photo to your story, press hard on the screen and hold your finger until “boomerang” appears on the screen.

You can return a photo to a static original in the same way.

4.

Fill the font with a gradient

Do you want the color of the text to stop being just monotonous?

It is enough to select the written text, select the initial color and at the same time (with both hands) swipe to the left over the text and the color scale.

5. Add glowing emoji effect

Open the text tool and select the neon font. Then choose any emoji. All is ready!

In this simple way, you can make the story look more original and make emoji play in a new way.

6. Add branded fonts to stories

To make this feature available, you will first need to download the Over application (available in the AppStore and Google play).

After installing the application, you can download fonts in OTF format to your phone from your computer by transferring them via Airdrop.

7. Align any font to the right or left

For some fonts, such as classic or typewriter fonts, this feature is available automatically.

But when you switch to a modern or neon font, this button disappears. However, a simple swipe across the screen to the left or right side will fix the situation.

8.Fill effect

Do you want to make a solid background? Easily!

Upload or take any photo, select the brush tool, click anywhere on the screen and hold until the screen is the color you want.

By the way, this problem can also be solved using the “marker” tool, however, then the background will be translucent.

And with the help of an eraser, you can later make an interesting pattern.

9. Hide hashtags

Hashtags in stories increase reach, but can spoil the overall picture. There are two ways to hide them:

  1. Make them as small as possible and cover them with a gif.
  2. Use the eyedropper to select a background color and paint your hashtags with it.

10.Create a text shadow effect

This effect is very easy to achieve.

Write your text. Then copy the text, and make another inscription of the same size, but in a different color.

Lay them on top of each other with a slight offset. Ready!

11. Share multiple answers to your question sticker at once

To do so, click share the answer, download the story and upload it as an image when you share the next one.

Repeat until you have shared all the answers you want.

12. Attach text or GIF so that it appears on your video at the right time

Did you know that you can not only overlay elements on the video in the story, but also choose the moment when they appear?

To do this, click on the text (gif) and hold it until a slider appears at the bottom.

Place the element where you would like it and click “attach”.

13.Copy GIFs directly from the GIPHY app

We all know that Instagram is already working with this service. Actually, all the gifs that can be attached to the story come from there.

However, it is rather difficult to find the one among those offered.

Therefore, we offer another option: go to the application, find the gif you like and copy the link to it.

Learn more