Instagram Story is very similar to Snapchat. It lets you share short videos or pictures that disappear after 24 hours and It appears at the top of everyone’s feed on Instagram.
5 Benefits of using Instagram story
For starters, Instagram Story user experience is far better than Snapchat. It’s more intuitive and offers better tools to grow your following. Additionally, it provides a new creative outlet for businesses to experiment with and you can post as many photos and videos as you want, without affecting your main Instagram feed.
You can add your own Instagram Story by either going to your Instagram profile and clicking your profile picture or you can go to your Instagram feed and to click the camera icon on the top left. Once the Instagram Story opens, you can either record a live video (15 secs max) or upload a picture or video. Make sure to use the right size. If you don’t know what is the best size for your content, don’t worry we got you covered in this Instagram image & video size guide
It’s fairly simple to use. Now let’s explore some of its features and how to optimize your content.
1. Offers a variety of media formats for everyone.
Instagram Story allows you to use many different media format. Once you open Story, you can see at the bottom of the screen a menu to swipe left and right to pick the format you want to use. Here are the 8 choices Instagram Story offers you.
- Type: Write your message on a coloured background.
- Live: Go live on Instagram
- Normal: Take a video or upload a video/photo.
- Boomerang: Add a fun GIF to your story
- Superzoom: Add a fun filter to your zoom (Latest addition to Story)
- Focus: Focus the video on you by blurring your background
- Rewind: Play your video in reverse
- Hands-free: Automatically takes a 15-second video when you press the record button once. No need to hold your finger on your screen.
Once you pick the most appropriate format for your story, you want to use some of the special tags to help your story get discovered.
2. Offers discovery tools
Your Instagram Stories are discoverable. This means, people who don’t follow you, can discover what you do through your Instagram Story. Now in order for people to find you, you have three options. These three options are going to be your Instagram Story best friends.
- GeoTag: Help the local public find you by adding your location.
- Mention: Tag your profile or someone else in your Story.
- Hashtag: Use relevant hashtag with your Instagram Story.
Even though you can use all three of them on the same post, you can only use them one at a time. That’s right, unlike your regular Instagram post, you can only use one hashtag and one mention per video/image. On the bright side, there is no limit on how many videos or images you can have on your Instagram Story, therefore, you can easily add a different hashtag for each video/image you post. Just make sure your geotag and hashtag are relevant to your story and tag only people you know.
3. Offers engagement tools
2018 is the year of engagement. Not that kind of engagement 💍 you silly.
Most, if not all social media networks have tweaked their algorithm to favor posts with the most engagement. The bottom line is if you want to reach more people organically, your post must generate engagement.
Instagram Story is no different, but since it’s a little harder to get people to have a conversation with you, you can engage them by asking questions.
Your engagement tools:
- Poll: Ask a yes or no question.
- Emoji Sliding Scale: Ask a question and pick an emoji to answer your question. Users have to slide that emoji along the scale to show how much they approve or disapprove with your question.
- Question: Ask an open-ended question
Writing tools:
- Manually write or draw with one of the many available pen styles
- Type your word directly with the keyboard. + highlight specific words with the colour of your choice.
Pretty things up with:
- GIF: Add a GIF to your post to attract attention to a specific part of your image/video.
- Selfie shot Insert: Easily add a selfie picture of you anywhere in your post.
- Various Stickers: From the day of the week, temperatures or hat, various stickers are available to add fun to your post. Increase or decrease your sticker’s size by expanding it with your two fingers.
Apply a coloured filter:
Once you are finished with your message, hashtags, and GIFs, you can add a filter to your post. Simply swipe right or left to apply a coloured filter to your photo or video.
Face Filters:
When you open your camera, you can find the face filter menu at the bottom right of your screen. Simply click on it to discover the various filter you can apply to your picture/video.
Add a link:
This option is only available to accounts with over 10,000 followers. If you do have access to this option, click on the paperclip icon at the top of your screen and simply type the URL of your choice.
Add Music:
You can add music to your videos by simply playing music directly on your device (streaming service or your own library) and then going back to Instagram Story and hit record.
Delete items:
Easily delete any unwanted item, hashtag, stickers, etc… by simply dragging the item on top of the trash bin located at the bottom of the screen.
Save your work:
Before publishing your work on Insta Stories, you can save it locally on your phone by clicking the save icon at the bottom left of the screen. Once your story is published you can retrieve it from your Instagram archive folder.
4. Highlight your business features
Each Instagram Story you create can stay present on your profile page as a highlight. Just access your archive folder, create a new highlight category and select the Instagram stories that fit your newly created category. Highlights are a great way to show your profile visitors specific things about your business.
5. Bonus Feature
When you connect your Facebook business page to your Instagram account, your stories are automatically shared on your Facebook Business Page Stories.
I know, I know, it’s not much of a secret… but it is very important that you connect them together because your Instagram Stories will greatly boost your Facebook business page organic reach and overall visibility for FREE.
To recap:
Instagram story is constantly evolving and expanding its feature and the beauty of it is that Instagram Story can really be anything you want. Stories disappear after 24 hours and they don’t necessarily have to match your Instagram profile theme. It’s a great place to experiment with new things and also to highlight some of the main features of your business.
As of June 2018, Instagram Story has 400 million daily active users. Yes, 400 million !!! 😲
It is a great tool to grow your organic reach and to place yourself in front of a new audience that doesn’t know anything about you yet.
Guez Marketing Founder, social media strategist, marketer and content creator with a passion for connecting people through technology. When he is not helping business owners build a strong online presence he loves to discover new ethnic food, to watch sci-fi movies and to craft delicious cocktails.
Do you run a business and have a limited presence on social media? Do you need help setting up your social media accounts? Or help creating content and managing your online presence? We can help you. Contact us today
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