How to create amazing Instagram stories on your phone
Instagram stories have been around for years, but evolving features mean users can be even more creative with their content. Are you looking to create slick-looking Insta stories to rival your fave influencers? We’re sharing some top tips on revamping the Stories section of your feed and creating awesome content.
Create a brand
If you want to boost engagement and make people remember you, creating a brand is an excellent way to start. This could be a particular colour theme that you stick to, or you could go as far as creating fonts and logos. Add these to your stories, and you’ll become much more memorable.
Include photos
Whilst graphics and text can look great, why not include some photography to spice things up? Upload a picture from your phone and use it as a background rather than the block colour you usually use. If you haven’t got many pics that you think will make the cut, there are millions of free photo websites like Unsplash that provide incredible shots you can use. Just make sure they’re relevant and on-brand.
Utilise the tools you can get
Make sure you make the most of the tools you can use on your Stories. These work wonders for engagement and can also be fun to use. Some examples are:
- Boomerang
- Music
- GIFs
- Stickers
- Filters
- Templates
- Polls
- Questions
- Quizzes
Create highlights to save the stories you love
Sometimes there are stories you want to show off for longer than 24 hours. Whilst it won’t appear on your story, you can create highlights that will appear on your main feed under your bio. To remain consistent, create highlight covers that incorporate your preferred colours and store your favourite memories here.
Hide hashtags
We all know hashtags are a great way to raise your profile and attract viewers on the same wavelength. However, they can look messy and unattractive, especially in Stories. To hide hashtags, type them out as you would usually and then place a GIF or sticker in front of it. If you have a solid colour as the background, select the colour tool from the text option, click on the background to grab the colour and apply it to the text.
Remember, Instagram won’t register the hashtags if they’re too small. Your best bet of attractively adding hashtags to your Story is to hide them.
Use text effects
There are a few fonts you can choose from for your copy, plus you might have created your own. However, you can go one step further and play around with text effects to make more of an impact.
- Create a drop shadow by writing the same copy in different colours and placing one on top of the other.
- Use the typing tool. When writing text, select the third button to the right at the top of the screen. It will have a capital A in a box with two lines to its left. When people view your story, it will type out the copy rather than show it all at once.
- Add a background – this will make your text stand out.
Look at the data
If your profile is set to a business account, Instagram will outline helpful metrics so you can measure your engagement and see what works. Tap on the menu icon in the top right-hand corner, then select Insights. This will open the analytics for your profile. As well as accessing data on your posts and followers, you’ll be able to see the following (and more) for your stories:
- Impressions – How many times your story has been viewed
- Reach – How many unique accounts viewed your story
- Exits – The number of times someone exited your story mid-way through
- Replies – How many people replied to your story
- Taps – The number of users who tap back and forward through your stories
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