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How to use instagram stories like a pro


How to Create Instagram Stories Like a Pro: 12 Essential Tips for 2019

So, you want to be an Instagram Stories pro?  You came to the right place!

Stories continue to rise in popularity with more and more companies using it to connect with users. In fact, there are 300 million daily active Story users.  

Originally launched as a direct play to win audiences back from Snapchat, Instagram Stories have quickly overtaken its predecessor.

Stories can be compelling, engaging, and create a true personal connection with your audience.

But how can you use it for marketing your business? And how can you take advantage of all those cool features you see other companies and influencers using?

We’ve got you covered. 

 Join the IMPACT coaches for a deep dive on a new topic every month in our free virtual event series.

At the end of this post you’ll be on your way to being an Instagram Stories pro.

1. Opt for Natural Lighting

Like any video or photography, lighting can make or break the professional nature of your Instagram Story.

It doesn’t mean that you need to go out and buy professional lights and setup a fully-decked out studio. In fact, the best lighting typically comes from natural light.

Natural light tends to be  more flattering for all skin tones and allows you to avoid strange shadows.

The best time of day to get natural light is right after sunrise or an hour before sunset - also known as “the golden hour.”

You might be under the assumption that middle of the day would be best to capture all the sunlight, but it’s actually too bright and can often cause overexposure and shadows.

If most of your day is spent indoors and you don’t have much time to get outside, consider scoping out places in your office, or house that have big windows facing the light, so that you’re shot isn’t backlit.

So you live in a place that rarely has sun? I’m sorry, you should consider moving. Just kidding.

All jokes aside, there are other options for you and they don’t have to be expensive or difficult to use.

In fact, Wistia has a “Down and Dirty DIY Lighting Kit” that you can put together for under $100.

2. Use Your Phone’s Native Camera

You don’t have to shoot with a fancy camera to get professional quality. Thanks to smartphones, you can shoot great video with what’s already in your hand!

For the best video footage from your phone, make sure you use  your native camera, and not the one in Instagram when shooting. Videos taken directly in Instagram have lower resolutions and limited options for editing directly in the app.

If you happen to have it in your budget to invest in a camera we suggest going with a DSLR.

If you aren’t familiar with what that is, it’s short for digital single reflex lens. It differs from others cameras based on its technology and components.

A DSLR can give you high image quality as it records in raw image format (useful for getting a bunch of different file formats for post production) and does not apply compression.

It allows full manual control and interchangeable lenses for more cinematic looks.

Like I mentioned, this isn’t a must nor something I would recommend as you’re starting with Instagram video, but it’s a nice to have if you are a little further along in your video marketing or  have the means to get one.

3. Keep Video Length & Editing in Mind  

As you might already know, Instagram Stories only let you post videos up to 15 seconds long, so you’ll have to learn to keep things snappy. These videos can be shot in portrait or traditional landscape mode, but considering that Instagram users typically browse with their phones vertically, it’s best to stick to portrait.

One great way to ensure you’re able to appropriately fit your content into a 15 second snippet and allow Stories to flow nicely without awkwardly cutting you off during your recorded story is to use editing software.

Editing Software

With such a strict time limit to your Instagram Story videos, editing can be key! Luckily, there are many options at your fingertips and you don’t have to be a pro to use them!

Here are a couple options to get things off the ground.

Magisto

This app is great for beginners due to its simplicity and ease of use. It gives you the ability to edit audio and video after the video has been created.

Quik

This comes from GoPro, but you don’t need GoPro to use it. You’re able to choose from a variety of filters, and it allows you to bring together multiple unedited videos into one fully edited one. You can also add in music and transitions. And it’s free!

FilmoraGo

This is also an easy to use video editing app. You have the ability to add in music, filters, subtitles, and more. The features you have access to depend on what plan you’re on. They do have a free version though that allows you to tackle basic editing features.

Adobe Premiere Clip

This is another great app that will allow you to edit the video, rearrange clips in a certain order, customize the speed, adjust lighting and music. This can also easily be effective without going into the paid plans.

There’s a ton of others too. We dive into a bunch more here.

4. Keep Branding Consistent

Alright, now that we’ve got the foundational pieces covered, let’s talk about the different features on Instagram and how to best use them.

Just as you’d keep the same branding on printed materials as you would on your website, you want to make sure that consistency spreads to your Instagram account  as well.

Think about your website - do you use more images of people or products? Do you use particular overlays on images? What is your color palette?

Make sure this all translates into what you’re producing for your Instagram Story.

Consistency should also be seen in  your messaging and content. Keep in mind your established audience, their likes, and expectations. Everything you create should be in line with these. 

Why is branding consistency on your Instagram Story important?

It strengthens brand recall, and doesn’t create confusion or division amongst followers. You want someone to have the same experience with your brand no matter the medium they are on.

A great example of strong brand consistency is the way HubSpot uses it in their Instagram Stories.

They show their real employees, always find a way to use the color orange, and use their Stories to educate followers on marketing and business tips.

5. Use Locations and Appropriate Hashtags

Using hashtags and locations in your Instagram Stories allow  users to more easily find your content (especially the ones that aren’t following you). This is one of the big reasons why Instagram Stories are beating Snapchat’s these days so make the most of them!

If you’re struggling to put together hashtag ideas, consider doing a simple search on the platform.

Start with some words that your audience might be searching for. From there, you’ll se a list of the top hashtags around it and how many posts have been tagged with them.

Another option to consider is taking a look at some competitors to see what hashtags they are using.

Keep in mind hashtags (like keywords) can get competitive.

For instance, if you’re a travel company, you don’t want to just hashtag “travel.”

Think about the top destinations people are booking through your company and start tagging those specifically. It’s like long-tail keywords. You want to get as specific as possible.

Also include locations in your posts and Stories.

The perk of including the location on your story is your content will appear if someone does a location search. It will also appear when a user is on their general search page.

There are Stories at the top of the page based on the user’s nearest location.

Plus, how many times have you seen a cool photo or video on a friend’s Instagram Story and wondered where that was? Using location tags answers this question and builds buzz.

Invision does a great job incorporating location and hashtags into its Instagram story:

 

6. Add Animation & Music

Another really cool thing you can add to your stories is animation. This is a great way to switch things up and make your videos standout.

There are free tools that you can take advantage of to do this, but my favorite is Adobe Spark.

It’s as simple as downloading the app on your phone or computer, picking a rich visual template, colors palettes, saving it to your phone, and uploading to Instagram.

With the array of templates and colors available, you’re bound to find options that match your brand.

This YouTube video gives you a quick how-to of the app so you can get started in no time:

 

 

Another animation feature you can add to your Instagram story are GIFS - because who doesn’t like to have a little fun.

Go to your video, tap on the “stickers” feature, tap on GIF, and then you have the ability to sort within GIFs to find the one you’d like to use.

Music

There’s a couple different options for adding music to your Instagram Story.

If you’re recording a story right in the platform, all you have to do is play music on another app within your phone. In other words,  if you’re already blasting music through Spotify while you record a video, it will be included.

If you’re looking to integrate music after you’ve recorded a video outside of the platform (which we recommend),a great third party app to consider is InShot.

It allows you to tap into music you have saved on your phone, or access their library.

InShot also allows you to trim music, select level of volume, crossfade, and add in fade in/out options.

Of course ,if you’re a more seasoned video professional, you can also always drop in music through your editing software of choice, then upload it back onto your phone.

7. Use the Native Effects to Enhance Your Story

Pinning

Ever add text into a video and it’s just in an awkward place the whole time? It doesn’t have to be that way! Instagram allows you to pin text, @mentions, and graphics in your Story.

After you create the text you’d like to include on your Story, hold your thumb down on it until you see a pin option at the bottom right.

From there you’ll see a line that will allow you to go through the video clip and choose where you’d like to pin the text.

Font Options

As you’re writing text on a Story, you’ll see the option to change between neon, modern, typewriter, strong, and classic. That way you can choose something that is a bit more aligned with your brand (if you’re not ready to get fancy with editing text in through video software).

Super Zoom

When you’re about to create a video right within Instagram, you’ll see many options at the bottom of the screen, one of them being super zoom.  

Super zoom is a lot of fun (arguably one of the best features). It allows you to dramatically zoom in on a person or object in a variety of different styles  - bounce, tv show, dramatic, beats.

TV Show for example, blurs slightly and adds a purple circle around the object in the center of screen, while also playing “dreamy” music that you might hear in an 80’s or 90’s sitcom.

Random? Yes, but they could be a great way to show of your sense of humor and team culture.

Try them all out and see which you like best. To see the options click on the music note which will allow you to filter through them. Once you’ve selected the one you want.  you’ll just click record and super zoom does its magic.

Boomerang

Who doesn’t like a good old boomerang shot? Ever since Instagram introduced this app and incorporated the feature into its Stories, I can’t get enough of them.

These quirky video loops are another option to switch up your video and show some personality in a unique way.

What you’ll do is select the option once you’re on the Instagram camera. Obviously, you don’t want to record something still - that would be boring.

Make sure that what you’re recording is moving in an interesting way to get the most out of it.

Slo Mo

This one might be a little more difficult to strategize (or not if it's your jam), but when you find the right moment to use it, you’ll be glad you did.

Slo Mo can make any moment a little more dramatic and emphasize a specific action in a creative way.

You can also select this option when you’re on the Instagram camera mode.

Text Frames

Instead of having to clutter a photo with text, you can use a colored blank background and add a text frame to include more of a narrative to give video and photos more context.

Within text frames you also have the ability to add tags as well.

This also helps break up the photos and video and include an even different way of relaying a message.

8. Encourage Engagement with Polls & Mentions

Another unique feature to get more people interacting with your Instagram Story is polls.

Polls are a great way to not only get users engaged with your content, but it also provides an excellent way to see what your audience is interested in.

Consider asking questions that will help you craft future content. This should help with seeing engagement numbers increase as you’re posting content your audience has told you they are interested in.

You can also boost engagement with mentions. For example if someone hashtags or mentions your brand in a post, consider re-sharing it in your story and mentioning them.

To highlight our friends at Invision again, check out how the brand mentioned its team members and others they met an industry event in its Instagram story:

9. Go Live

I’m sure you’ve seen celebrities and influencers do this to interact with their followers.

Going live on Instagram Stories lets you engage with your audience in real-time.

Use it to showcase something new and exciting at your company or to even invite someone in your industry who is well-known to do a Q&A on a trending topic and allow your audience to interact and ask questions.

You can also use Live as an opportunity to invite users to get a glimpse into your business.

For example, show what production looks like for a product - show them how it’s made and who is making it. This gives a more human element to your brand and allows people connect on an even greater level.

10. Link out!

Just as I’d recommend you provide conversion opportunities on your website, I highly recommend you take advantage of the “see more” CTA in Instagram.

This is a way for you to drive traffic from Instagram to your website or anywhere else you want them to go -- unfortunately, it’s only available to those with over 10,000 followers right now.

To add a link, you add/upload your video to stories and then you’ll see a chain link icon at the top of your story. From there, you can add in a URL and once you see the checkmark is green you’re good to click done.

Even though there will be the “see more” link at the bottom of the story or post you want to make sure that you provide CTA text on the post to encourage the user to swipe up.

If you don’t have 10,000 followers yet, you can always send people to the link in your bio as you would in a normal post.

One down side of Instagram is that it doesn’t track link clicks.

Thus to track actions you have to to use UTM parameters. These are short text codes added to a url that allow you to track visitor traffic sources. UTM parameters send information to Google Analytics to track how much traffic your social media posts are sending to your website and what the conversions are like.

11. Create Story Highlights

Story highlights allow you to pick videos and pics from your Story that you to feature on your Instagram profile.

Instagram Stories are great, but they disappear after 24 hours. With Highlights, you and your audience can enjoy them permanently.

As you’re creating  Highlights, consider breaking them up and organizing them into different topics. This makes it easy for the user to check out exactly what they are interested in.

Learn more about setting them up here.

Due to a recent Instagram update your Stories should automatically be archived so you can start doing this right now, if you haven’t already., Check your account settings to make sure this is turned on.

12.

Plan Your Content

Last but not least, plan out your content!

Just as you would plan out an editorial calendar for blogs, decide the type of content you want to produce for your Story ahead of time.

This is a great opportunity to show people behind the scenes of your company and to introduce them to your team members.

When you’re planning out your Story content,  include strategic hashtags and calls-to-action  to drive users from the platform to your site to interact even more.

Do it for the ‘Gram!

See, Instagram Stories are that daunting. There are a lot of tools at your disposal that can take yours to the next level even right within the platform.

Something to always keep in mind is that these social media platforms are always changing which means as a marketer you should continue to keep an eye on the changes/updates and how you can integrate them into your strategy.

Also, remember to test what you’re doing. See what resonates most with your audience and optimize it. If there are strategies that just aren’t working - get back to the drawing board.

At the end of the day, the ultimate thing to remember is people don’t come to social platforms to get sold to - they come to connect, socialize and learn new things.

So, make sure as a business user you’re using it the same way.

How to use Instagram Stories like a pro

Let’s face it, Snapchat is facing some serious, constant competition from Instagram. While the company is nowhere near down and out, brands and individuals are increasingly shifting over to Instagram Stories for a variety of reasons. Instagram has been relentless about bringing over some of Snapchat’s best features and tools — and often making its own refinements and improvements along the way.

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In April, Instagram Stories usage surpassed all Snapchat activity, with Instagram Stories users surpassing 200 million, and Snapchat stories rounding up to 160 million (both numbers are likely higher now). Even if you’re not ready to fully move away from Snapchat, I’m here to teach you the ins and outs of Instagram Stories, and how to become a true pro on the stories platform that people are increasingly starting to explore.

WHY EVEN USE INSTAGRAM STORIES

Instagram Stories generally provide a better, less perplexing user experience. Now if you’re a brand, the list of reasons why you should use Instagram Stories are endless. Most importantly, the amount of people you are likely to reach on Instagram is usually far greater than on Snapchat. Additionally, it provides another platform to make creative content, and ultimately drive to your goal, whether that’s to have someone buy clothes, read a blog post, or download a song. You also don’t get that ugly white square around your media like you do in Snapchat when you upload content from your camera roll, either. The ways to get creative on the platform are truly endless. It’s almost like a small TV channel for your brand where you can go to town with out-of-the-box concepts.

THE BASICS

How to add to your story: There are two ways to add to your story: the first is by going to your profile page and clicking on your icon. The second is going to your main feed and clicking on the camera icon on the top left corner. Once you are done adding text, drawings, and stickers on your masterpiece you tap the “+ your story” icon at the bottom right corner and it has officially been added to your story.

How to add to your story: option 1

How to add to your story: option 2

How to select a media format: Once you’ve made it to the “add to your story” screen, the bottom of your screen will allow you to swipe right and left to choose between Normal (a regular photo or video), Boomerang (a GIF), Rewind (your video in reverse), and Hands Free (which automatically takes a 15 second video without you having to hold down the record button).

How to add filters: Just like Snapchat, you swipe left to advance through a series of filters that can be applied to your photo or video clip. Easy.

How to add filters

How to add an image or video from your camera roll to your story: There are two ways to do this. You will notice a small icon on the bottom left of the screen next to the flash icon. This will have a thumbnail of the latest media in your camera roll. You can click this to unveil your photos and videos from the last 24 hours. The other way to do this is to swipe your screen down. You can’t post anything that has been taken more than a day ago, but I’ve got a hack for that later in this article. If you are uploading a custom image (like a flyer in my case for when I’m DJ’ing), the dimensions are 1080 x 1920 pixels. The video aspect ratio is 9:16, and the length can very from anywhere between one second and 15 seconds.

STICKERS

How to add geotags: You get to stickers by clicking on the square happy face icon on the top right corner of your screen. You’ll see a “location” sticker. Once you tap this, a series of options will come up. If you don’t see your location you can also search for it. I don’t really need to explain how to use other stickers as its just a matter of scrolling and finding whichever one you want to use.

How to add a selfie sticker: Once you hit stickers icon, you’ll see a camera icon to the left of #hashtag. You can click on this and take a selfie, and then tap the image to add a white circle around it or leave it with glowing edges. You can only take a selfie with this sticker. This is great for many things: I’ve seen people take multiple pictures and add each of their friends faces to different bowls of ramen. Or you can be like me and add your face to a picture of the sky and pretend to be god or the sun. The possibilities are endless.

How to add geotags and selfie stickers

Look at god.

How to change the size of your sticker: With any sticker, you can increase and decrease their size by pinching or expanding it with two fingers.

How to pin a sticker or text to a moving part of your video: Place your text or sticker in the desired location and tap and hold the screen until you get a little bar at the bottom that says “pin”. Find the subject in the video you want to pin it to and then hit “pin” when you’re ready. If you are not happy with the result, you can tap and hold the image or text again and keep trying.

How to pin

How to add a hashtag: There are two ways to do this. You can click on the stickers icon and hit “hashtag” and add it that way. You can also just type in a hashtag using the text icon. Either approach will result in a tappable, searchable hashtag in your story.

USING YOUR PEN

How to change colors: There are two key hacks here. The first is swiping left to reveal an array of preselected colors. The second is picking any color and holding your finger down, which reveals an entire palette of colors to chose from.

How to unlock more colors

How to change the pen size and style: On the top of the screen you’ll see four different options for pen styles, and one eraser. They each provide their own style and the eraser tool is a relatively new addition so you can easily erase any mistakes. On the left hand side, you’ll see a slider that allows you to adjust the size of your pen.

ADDING COLOR OVERLAYS

If you want to make your entire screen one solid color, just take your image or video, select any pen, pick a color, and then tap and hold the main part of the screen. When you lift your finger, the screen will become that color. From here, you can use the eraser tool to selectively reveal certain parts of your original image or video. Get creative!

ADDING TEXT

How to add text and change style: To get to the text, you click on the top right corner on the “Aa” icon and start writing. Once you write your text and tap out of the text box, you can also tap on it to change the style and alignment. There are three options: one with a slight faded color in the back, one solid color background, and with no background — just the colored text. Changing the color of your text works much the same as it does with drawing / pens.

How to add color overlays

How to add text and change style

How to have text with multiple colors and sizes: Highlight the individual word in the text to change the color of it. The other way to do this is once you write one word and make it the color and style you want, you simply hit the text button again and write another word or phrase and give it a different color. You can use this to layer the same word over itself in a different color to give it a layered effect, or just make fun typography stuff like this:

Fun!

How to tag people: You do this by clicking the text icon and typing @ followed by the handle. Instagram should generate a list of people who you’re trying to tag as you type, and then you click on their image to tag them. You have to make sure this happens otherwise you can type @soandso and it won’t actually tag them. The way you can tell it worked is by seeing an underline under the tagged name.

SAVING & DELETING

How to delete a sticker or text: This is drag and drop in all its glory. You take your undesired item and drag it to the bottom center of the screen into the garbage icon. Simple!

How to delete a sticker or text

How to save and delete individual shots and your entire story: You’ll see an arrow on the bottom left corner that points down once you snap a pic, boomerang or video. Click that to save your singular image. In order to save your entire story, click on your profile icon and click on the bottom right corner of the screen on the three dots. Click “Save” and it will give you two options: save image, or save story. Select save story to get the story from the last 24 hours saved into one single video file. That’s pretty convenient! This is also where you will find the option to delete.

EXTRA TIPS

How to add face filters: When in the camera view, you’ll find a face icon on the bottom right corner of your screen. You tap this to reveal a series of face filters. You can be the judge of whether they’re better or worse than Snapchat’s filters.

How to add face filters

How to add a link (only for verified accounts): If you have a verified account, you can abuse the hell out of this feature to drive people to your longer form content, a purchase page, etc. You do this by first adding a photo or video and then hitting the paperclip icon on the top right corner of your screen. Add your URL there, and when you add to your story, you’ll see it says “swipe up”. You can get creative with the content you’re uploading by creating an arrow that would point to the “swipe up” text, or any other moving imagery to direct peoples eyes to that part of the screen.

How to add links

How to add music to your video: This process is the same as what you might be used to with Snapchat. You can play music natively from your device from whichever streaming service you prefer (or your own library). You hit play, go back to stories, and simply hit record.

How to add GIFs to your story: The best way to do this is to convert or download your GIF into a video file, send it to yourself, and then add it to your story via the camera roll.

How to rotate a video before adding to your story: There is an app that is great for this called Video Rotate.

How to hack the 24 hour rule: Instagram Stories are meant for sharing of recent content, but there are several ways to post something older. There are two key apps that adjust the timestamp of an image or video automatically. If you are sending the file to yourself: Slack and WhatsApp do the job. I frequently bombard my sister with WhatsApp messages of random creations in order to renew the timestamp. If you don’t have either of those, other apps can also get around the 24-hour rule. Story Uploader is the best option.

How to chop and upload a video longer than 15 seconds:

If you produced some high quality video that is longer than 1 minute and want to chop it into 15 second intervals so that it flows as one seamless story, there’s an app for that too! It’s called CutStory.

How to reply and report someone’s story:

If someone is posting stuff that’s clearly inappropriate to their story, you can easily report it to Instagram. You do this by clicking the three buttons on the bottom right corner of the story you are watching and hit “report.” Or, instead of flagging it to Instagram, you can just message someone to tell them to ease up on all the selfies and food photos. To reply to someone’s story with a message, just swipe up while viewing it and the keyboard will pop up.

GO FORTH AND STORY

I think I’ve covered all my bases. Do you feel like pro? A content creating expert? Do the features in Instagram Stories appeal to you more than Snapchat? Now it’s up to you to harness these tips and tricks and get creative with how you share your everyday life with your followers. What a great way to present your best self and make stories that people might actually want to watch instead of tapping to skip through.

How to Use Instagram* Stories: A Comprehensive Guide

July 11, 2017 Technologies

The Instagram* Stories interface is intuitive for everyone, but some features are not so obvious. A detailed guide will help you publish your first story on Instagram*, as well as reveal some useful tricks for experienced users of the service.

The Basics

Creating a Story

Swipe from left to right on the Instagram home page* (where you follow your feed) to start posting stories. To take a photo or shoot a video, you need to click on the circle at the bottom of the screen, and by swiping down you can open the media selection window from your library. There is another way to create a story: select your account tab (where your photos are shown) and click on the + next to your profile photo. nine0003

Shooting modes

Instagram* Stories supports five shooting modes.

  • Live. By selecting this mode, you can broadcast from the camera of your smartphone. After the broadcast is over, the video can be shared on Instagram*.
  • Normal mode. A quick tap takes a photo, a long press takes a video.
  • Boomerang. "Boomerangs" - short looping animations. This mode is suitable for shooting dynamic videos. nine0020
  • Write back. With this mode, you can shoot video in reverse.
  • Hands free. In this mode, a quick tap will start a 15-second recording without you having to hold down the record button.

Filters

The choice of filters in Instagram* Stories is small, but usually enough. Filters can be changed by swiping left or right.

Supported photo and video format

Instagram* Stories photos and videos are vertical. Horizontal media files are cut off when imported. To select the desired area of ​​the photo to be published in the story, you can use the frame crop in the standard photo editor. The maximum video length is 15 seconds. Keep in mind that a longer video clip will be shortened when imported. You can upload to history only those pictures and videos that were taken in the last 24 hours. nine0003

Masks

Another borrowing of Instagram* Stories from Snapchat. To go to the masks, you need to tap on the icon to the right of the camera change icon.

Stickers

To attach a sticker to a story, you need to click on the corresponding icon after shooting or simply swipe up on the screen.

Location, temperature, and time stickers

On the first line of the sticker selection screen, you can choose to add location data, the current temperature at your location, and the time of publication to your history. nine0003

Adding a selfie to the story

On the next line of the sticker selection screen, there is a camera icon. Choosing such a sticker will allow you to take a selfie and embed it in the story. Moreover, the borders of the photo can be either blurred or emphasized with a white frame. With this feature, you can create fun collages or express your opinion about what is depicted in the story with the help of a joyful or condemning grimace.

Change sticker size

Use two fingers to make the sticker larger or smaller. Once you've selected a sticker, pinch your fingers together to make it smaller, or move your fingers apart to make it bigger. nine0003

Attach a sticker to a video element

Select any of the stickers, press and hold your finger for a couple of seconds. A time slider will appear in front of you. Select the second with the element to which you want to attach the sticker, set the desired location and size of the "sticker" and click "Attach". Now the sticker will be attached to the selected video subject.

Adding hashtags

To assign a hashtag to a story, you can use the tag in the text, but it's easier to select the appropriate sticker. Tapping on it will change the display style of the hashtag. When your friends see the tag, they can jump to posts with the same tag with one click. nine0003

Quick sticker selection

To avoid having to scroll the screen every time to find your favorite sticker, swipe right when you select it. You will see a list of recently used stickers. There is a separate group of stickers that fit especially well on portraits. To access them, swipe left.

Deleting stickers

To delete a sticker you accidentally added, press and hold your finger. A trash can icon will appear at the bottom of the screen, and you need to move the extra “sticker” there. nine0003

Drawing

To start drawing, click on the corresponding icon between the sticker and text icons in the story editing window.

Types of brushes

Four brushes are available to the user.

  • Regular brush. The same basic brush from any graphic editor.
  • Marker. Differs in the shape of the brush and the degree of transparency.
  • Brush with neon stroke. Similar to a regular brush, but with a choice of stroke color. The main color remains white. nine0020
  • Rainbow brush. One brush - seven colors.

A choice of erasers is also available.

Brush size

Brush size is adjusted using a special slider that opens by clicking on the icon with three dots at the bottom left of the screen.

Color selection

You can also choose brush colors when drawing: they are located at the bottom. You can move between the three standard palettes by swiping left or right. To choose your color, hold your finger on one of the circles. nine0003

Fill

To fill the frame with a single color, select the brush, press and hold anywhere on the screen. After uploading, you can open part of the photo or video using the eraser tool.

Text

To start typing, select the Aa icon to the right of the draw icon.

Styles and alignment

To adjust the color and size of text, follow the same steps as when painting with a brush. The scale of writing can also be changed using two fingers. nine0003

A button with indent adjustment appears in the upper left corner when typing. You can position the label on the left, right, or middle. The second functional button when typing is the letter A in a square. By clicking on it, you can switch between three label display styles.

3D text effect

To give text a 3D effect, create two identical labels but in different colors. Place them almost on top of each other, with a slight shift: you get 3D text. nine0003

User mark

To mark a user in your story, type the @ symbol when creating a note. Start typing a nickname and Instagram* will suggest options from among your friends. You can attach hashtags in approximately the same way: use the # symbol for this.

Other

Save Stories

Click on the three dots in the top right corner when you are on your Instagram profile*. To automatically save your stories, go to the story settings and move the "Save published photos" slider to the active position. nine0003

Add music to Instagram* Stories

There is no function to add music to video in Instagram* Stories. But there is still a way to add audio to a story. Many may have noticed that the music playing on your smartphone is not interrupted when viewing other people's stories. The same thing works when creating a video: just turn on the song on a streaming service or, for example, on the VKontakte social network and start shooting a story.

Video rotation

You can avoid cropping the edges of videos when publishing to stories using special applications that rotate videos by 90 degrees.

Upload

Price: Free

Publication of old photos and videos in the history

If you are late with the publication and 24 hours have already passed from the moment of shooting, a little trick will help you upload a photo or video. Just send the desired pictures or videos to yourself on WhatsApp and save. There is an easier way - using special applications. nine0003

appbox fallback https://apps.apple.com/ru/app/id1049894654

appbox fallback https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tregue.inst&hl=ru&gl=ru

Posting long videos

Use any video editor to post videos longer than 15 seconds to your story. You can remove some segments, split the video into several parts, or increase its speed. For iOS device users, the App Store offers an app that automatically splits a long video into multiple 15-second segments. nine0003

Download

Price: Free

*Meta Platforms Inc. activity. and its social networks Facebook and Instagram are prohibited in the territory of the Russian Federation.

10 Cool Features for Using Instagram Stories Like a Pro

Given that you've used Instagram for at least one minute, chances are you're familiar with Instagram Stories. Quite frankly, it is the most widely used social tool in our time. While Instagram surpassed one billion users in June, the tool alone has about 400 million daily active users. Even though Instagram Stories is a direct competitor to Snapchat, Stories has about twice as many Snapchat users, which is ironic since the latter is the first to introduce a Stories-like feature that creates episodes of visuals that disappear after 24 hours. nine0003

Like Snapchat, Instagram Stories is loaded with obscure features - both attractive and surprising - you may not even realize that the developers have perfected it. Since the tool was launched in August 2016, more and more impressive features have been added - let's call it healthy competition.

This has made Instagram Stories a go-to tool for brands and businesses to increase user engagement by sharing photos and videos and asking questions. Another benefit is to achieve great results with optimized and targeted Stories ads. In fact, since December 2016, businesses have accounted for about 34% of the most viewed stories on Instagram. nine0003

So here are 10 cool features to use Instagram Stories like a pro...

1. Add a soundtrack to your story.

The journey of storytelling begins with music. We may not all be music fans, but no one genuinely hates music. Music - well, the right music - can bring more attention to everything, including your stories.

  1. Tap the stickers icon after you've selected a photo or video to include in your story. nine0003

  2. Open your music library by tapping the MUSIC sticker.

  3. Select the desired song. You can search by genre or mood, or even check which songs are popular on IG. You can also search for a specific song.

  4. Use the Play button to listen to the song. You can move the song to a specific point so that it doesn't start over from the beginning.

  5. After adding the song to your post, click Your Story to post it. nine0003

If your brand is more trendy than usual, you can use Spotify instead of IG's music library.

  1. Open Spotify and find your favorite song (or album).

  2. Use the Options menu (three dots) to share the song to Stories by clicking Share and then Instagram Stories.

  3. After opening the Instagram app, you can add a sticker or lyrics to the cover of a song.

  4. Click Your Story to publish it.

2. Track the performance of your story.

Without quoting professionals, a business is only as good as the results. Instagram Stories lets you see exactly who has seen your photo or video.

  1. Open your story and swipe up.

  2. Now you can see the number of views and who has seen your story content. nine0003

Earlier this year, IG introduced a feature that lets you see who took a screenshot or screen recording of your story. This feature was eventually dropped because many - probably stalkers - hated it.

3. Record videos hands-free.

As far as social media is concerned, the visuals (photos and videos) are of a real gorilla weighing 800 pounds. And that's the whole point of Instagram. Stories now allows you to record video without holding down the capture button. nine0003

  1. Open the Instagram app and swipe right to open the Stories camera.

  2. From the options displayed at the bottom, select the rightmost option called HANDS-FREE. (Sometimes you need to swipe left to view this option.)

  3. Press and release the Capture button to start recording video.

Tip: Always make your stories suitable for vertical screens, because almost all users use their smartphones this way. nine0176

4. Stickers. Change the color or information and use a few

Instagram Stories are used by individuals and brands to interact with their audiences and, thanks to question stickers, even their followers.

To change the color or information:

  1. Select the desired sticker.

  2. Touch it to change the color. However, some stickers cannot change color. For example, you can only change the temperature units on the sticker. The weather sticker has many color variations. nine0003

To add more than one sticker:

  1. Touch the sticker icon to select your preferred sticker.

  2. You can change the details as above or leave it as is.

  3. Repeat the process as many times as you like.

Hint: The five most common stickers are likes, weather, hashtag, digital time, and colorful location stickers.

5. Use the "Hide my history from" function.

Even as a brand, you may find the Hide My Story From feature quite practical, especially since privacy invasion and social media harassment are serious issues online.

  1. While tracking the performance of your story, click the three dots next to the person you want to hide your story from.

  2. Just click "Hide History From [Username]" and you're done. nine0003

Here's an alternative:

  1. Go to your profile and find Settings. (Three dots on Android; gear icon on iOS.)

  2. Tap History Settings, then Hide My History.

  3. Select the ones you want to hide your history from and click Done.

6. How to anchor your best stories

Some stories are too good to be at the bottom; instead, use this awesome feature to pin them to the top of your profile and they'll stay there for as long as you want. This feature called Highlights is specially made for Instagram profiles for business. nine0003

  1. Go to your Instagram for Business profile and click the Create button.

  2. Select the desired history from the archive. (Your stories are automatically archived when they expire.)

  3. Select a cover icon and title for your Highlight and it will appear as a circle.

  4. Your Highlight will open as a story whenever someone clicks on the circle.

  5. Press and hold a selection to delete or edit it. nine0003

7. Zoom in and out of the video.

  1. Open the story camera.

  2. Press and hold the Capture button to record video.

  3. Zoom in or out by sliding up or down with the finger you hold the capture button.

8. Add text to posts in stories without limits.

Let's face it, you once wanted to share a few words with your audience, but you've exceeded the standard IG limit. To fix this, Stories allows you to add text without any word limit. nine0003

  1. Open the story camera.

  2. Prepare a video or photo and tap the screen or aA icon to add text.

  3. Write your own text and click the > icon.

  4. Repeat steps b and c to add as many texts as you want.

9. Use different colors for words or letters in text.

A bit childish, but one of the coolest things about Stories is using different colors for words or letters in your text...how cool is that? nine0003

  1. Enter the story chamber.

  2. Prepare your content and tap the screen or the aA icon to add text.

  3. Write your own text.

  4. Highlight any word or letter whose color you want to change by pressing and holding the word or letter.

  5. Choose the color you want and post a photo or video or keep editing until you're satisfied.

10. Save your story on film.

This will save you time if you plan to use your photo or video elsewhere.

  1. Open the History tool and swipe up.

  2. You will see a circle icon, click on it. (The icon is in the upper right corner.)

  3. Or you can use the download icon (ie the down arrow) in the lower left corner to save the photo or video as it downloads.

    Learn more