Looking for ways to improve engagement with your Instagram Stories?
This might help. Today, Instagram has provided an expanded overview of tips and tricks for Stories, which don’t reveal any new features, but do provide some interesting notes to consider in your creative process.
The overview includes five presentation tips, and a couple of sharing notes, which could enhance your Stories usage.
The first tip is to use “Sticker Templates” which Instagram first launched in December last year:
Sticker templates invite other users to contribute to a Story, via an “Ad Yours” prompt, which is an easy way to drive more direct engagement and interaction.
Instagram says that users can add GIFs, text or images to their template the help drive engagement.
As per Instagram:
“To create an Add Yours template, select “Add Yours Templates” from the sticker tray. You can create a custom template, or tap the dice for inspiration. Once you share to your story, anyone can use your template and add their spin to it.”
It could be a consideration for your Stories approach.
Instagram also highlights “Layout” as a Stories composer option:
Layout enables you to present multiple images in creative ways.
“Before taking a photo, tap the Layout icon. You can tap “Change grid” to change the layout of your photos. Then, you can take a series of photos with your camera or select pictures from your camera roll.”
Filling your Story background with a solid color can also make your Stories look more professional, and you can easily do this by selecting your desired color, then tapping and holding on the Stories window.
“You can also add a translucent overlay to your story by following the same steps – just select the highlighter icon before pressing the screen to fill.”
Instagram also notes that you can select variable color options by pressing and holding on the color to get a gradient display of colors to choose from.
Instagram also highlights the option to turn live photos into a Boomerang.
“Choose a live photo from your camera roll (these will have the boomerang icon in the corner). Then, press and hold on the photo to turn it into a Boomerang.”
While you can also make emojis “glow” in your Story:
“Use the text tool to type out the emoji you want. Then, select the neon cursive font and toggle on background text color. Your emoji will now have a soft glow around it. You can also change the color of the glow using the color picker.”
Instagram further notes that you can add a mention to a Story in retrospect, in case your forget in the composer, while you can also create a “Close Friends” list to limit Story sharing.
Some interesting composition notes, which could help you create better Stories, and drive more response.
You can check out Instagram’s full overview of Stories tips here.
