It’s hard to imagine anything easier than posting a story on Instagram. After all, it only takes a few seconds and three taps to take a photo or video and immediately share it on your profile. Especially as Stories are often seen as the unpolished antidote to many users’ curated Instagram feeds.
But there’s more to Instagram Stories than meets the eye. When used properly, they are an incredible tool for driving engagement with your followers, building connections with other users, and sharing your life with the people you care about.
When used improperly, however, Stories can quickly become annoying and over-long monologues that are confusing to anyone but their creator. Here are our best Instagram Stories tips to help your posts stand out from the crowd.
What Are Instagram Stories?
In case you’re still unfamiliar with the Stories feature (pioneered by Snapchat and quickly integrated into Facebook and Instagram), here’s what you need to know.
Essentially, an Instagram story is a sequential collection of photos and videos that is visible on your Instagram profile to any of your followers for 24 hours. After 24 hours, the story disappears.
Instagram Stories fill a variety of purposes. They can tell the behind-the-scenes story of an impressive Instagram post, provide insider information about a promotion, or can be a fun way to share an event in your life that doesn’t warrant a formal post.
Posting a story is easy: open Instagram, and tap the camera icon in the top left. Take a photo, and hit Send To, then press Share next to the contact labelled “Your Story”.
Of course, there’s a whole lot more to know, including Instagram mistakes you should avoid making.
1. Post Quality Photos and Videos
While this Instagram Story tip may seem like common sense, it’s often overlooked by Instagram users. Instagram stories are less formal than official Instagram posts, and leave some room for unedited photos or videos that sound more like a casual conversation.
However, if you are looking for social media success, everything you post needs to be worth your audience’s attention.
Here’s a quick checklist:
- Photos and videos should be in focus and interesting
- Simple editing (such as straightening horizons, cropping, and color correction) can go a long way
- Text should be readable, and not overly long
- Videos with voiceovers shouldn’t cut off at awkward times or in the middle of a sentence
- Standard strategies for making your Instagram photos stand out still apply—you can never go wrong with a little extra editing!
Also, just because Stories gives you the freedom to post as many photos or videos as you want doesn’t mean that you should post every photo or video you take. Your complete story shouldn’t last longer than two or three minutes—and that’s an absolute maximum. Stories are designed to give people a quick and exclusive look “behind the scenes” of your social media; lengthy commentary is better suited to a blog post or YouTube video.
2. Give Context for Your Instagram Stories
One of the biggest mistakes Instagram users make is posting stories that don’t make any sense. But, you also don’t want to spend your time typing out lengthy explanations that no one will read, or offering voice overs that no one will listen to.
Instead, Instagram offers simple stickers (found in the top right of the photo-editing screen) for each image or video. Use these stickers to identify your location, provide a time stamp, tag the people you’re with, or to add a relevant hashtag.
Paired with a sentence or two on Instagram Stories’ “Type” screen (swipe all the way left after opening the Stories camera), your story will make sense to everyone who views it.
3. Be Interesting
Instagram has a ton of great features specifically for Stories. And since one of the main purposes of Instagram Stories is to show off a more personal (and fun!) side of your social media, you should take full advantage of these features whenever possible!
Great Instagram Stories features include:
- Taking and sharing Boomerangs
- A Focus filter that ensures your face stands out from the background
- A “Superzoom” filter that can be paired with different sound clips (including “bounce”, “TV show”, “dramatic”, and “beats”) to help emphasize a key item or person in your story
- Playing a video in rewind
- A “Hands Free” mode that lets you take video clips without holding down the shutter button
- A “Stop Motion” mode that lets you create short, looping videos out of still photos
- Your choice of a changing selection of live filters (press and hold on someone’s face or tap on the smiley face at the bottom right of the screen) that can give you silly accessories, distort your face in funny ways, or even work some Photoshop magic
- A huge variety of stickers, GIFs, and emojis that you can add anywhere on your image/video
Have fun exploring these Instagram Stories tricks to make your Instagram Stories stand out from the crowd.
4. Ask Questions on Instagram Stories
One easy way to get viewers invested in your Instagram Story is to ask them to share their opinion. Instagram offers two easy tools to get input from the people watching your story.
First, you can choose to create a poll. Simply select the “Poll” sticker, type in your question, and then enter two options for viewers to choose between. As people select either option the poll will constantly update its percentage.
Want something a little less polarizing? Choose the slider sticker instead. You can customize both the question you ask and the sticker you use to label the slider. Viewers can then drag the slider to the intensity of their reaction to your question.
5. Cultivate a Community on Instagram
One of the potential downsides to Instagram Stories is that your followers can’t respond publicly to your posts through comments. And while the polls and sliders shown above are fun, they don’t allow for a lot of nuance. Many successful Instagram accounts address this shortcoming by posting screenshots of thoughtful responses that have landed in their direct messages.
This strategy can be a great way to build a community around your Instagram account—but be careful to respect your followers’ privacy. It’s always best to ask before tagging someone’s username or showing identifying information in a screenshot. You can also always draw over any identifying information using the marker tool.
6. Think Outside the Box
Instagram has a ton of great features that are native to the app. But you can also add to your stories from any photos (or screenshots of photos) that you’ve saved to your phone over the last 24 hours. This feature opens up a world of possibilities , especially when paired with awesome third-party Instagram apps.
When it comes to Instagram Stories, the only limits are your creativity and your audience’s attention span. Stories offer a truly unique method of telling stories and sharing information, and third-party apps and editing features can go a long way towards helping you to achieve any effect you want.
7. Branch Out
While they may seem gimmicky at first, Instagram Stories are a powerful way of reaching followers. Whether you’re promoting a brand on Instagram, establishing a business, or just sharing what you had for breakfast, it’s important to use Instagram Stories as a way to link viewers in to your other social media accounts.
Don’t be afraid to direct viewers to other social media accounts through your Stories.
For example, after showing a behind-the-scenes interview, you can ask viewers to go view the final product on YouTube, enter a contest on your blog, or visit a specific site with a coupon code.
If you have over 10,000 followers (or are a verified account) you can even include a link directly in your story. If you have fewer followers than that, you can always use the old “link in bio” trick!
Instagram Stories are also key for promoting other accounts that you enjoy, building hype for a promotion, or helping viewers to feel more connected to you as an individual.
What’s Your Instagram Story?
Stories on platforms like Instagram and Snapchat have been one of the biggest recent shifts in social media. Their flexibility is a key component of that—the way you make your stories can be completely different than anyone else’s.
That being said, it’s important to make sure that what you are doing is working. Be sure to monitor who’s viewing your Instagram Story and adjust your strategies as needed until you reach the audience you want to reach!
