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How can you tell if you’re managing your Instagram Stories well? Simply put, you’ll find it in your statistics. You can read on for the long answer. But first, why make a plan for Instagram Stories in the first place? There you have it—the numbers. Stories are used by about half of Instagram’s daily users. Each day, 500 million people write 1 billion Stories. About 62% of those people say that seeing a brand or product in their Stories made them more interested in it.
Although the channel is very popular, brands have reacted by posting an average of 2.5 Instagram Stories every week. We have all the information you need on best practices for this style, whether you’re just starting or want to learn the newest tricks. Get a free pack of 20 Instagram Stories images that you can change right now. Style up your brand promotion while saving time and looking expert.
Tips for Using Instagram Stories
The camera-first Fullscreen visual format Instagram Stories, which is based on Snapchat and goes after 24 hours, doesn’t show up in the Instagram news feed. As a result, users can quickly and easily post to their friends without worrying about sending too many messages.
When compared to how smooth Instagram is thought to be, the vibe is a bit rougher around the edges. For beginners, this is good news: you don’t have to hire a cameraman to jump in. Big businesses like Apple are posting iPhone videos of their dogs at work. Start by watching these short guides.
The best way to make Instagram Stories
Click the camera icon in the upper left part of the app to get to the Instagram Stories camera.
To snap a picture, tap the white circle at the bottom of the screen.
- To take a video, press and hold the white circle OR
- If you want to use images that are already there, swipe up or click on the square gallery icon on the left.
- You can try out Type, “Music”, “Live”, “Boomerang”, “Superzoom”, “Focus”, or “Hands-free” formats at the bottom of the screen.
Some tips and tricks for Instagram Stories
Here are our top tips and some examples of the best work in their field to get you thinking.
Method 1: Get your brand’s look just right.
Stories fill the whole screen and pull you in. Good visuals will help you play that up. Instagram says that having a consistent visual personality is one of the most important things to do if you want your Story to show up on the Explore page. Also, if you want to build a relationship with your audience, they should be able to tell your style from your username.
A good place to start is by using the same colours, fonts, accepted GIFs, and Instagram Stories templates. You might want to keep a full-on style guide if you have the time and money to do so. This will help your team stay on the same page with your brand’s tone. You don’t need a design team or a degree in visual arts to get better at this important step. Many apps focus on Stories that can help you.
Method 2: In Instagram Stories, images are shown for 5 seconds and videos for up to 15.
I can’t believe I’m typing this, but that can feel like forever. To keep people’s attention, use more than one “scene” in your Stories and especially in your Stories ads. This can be as simple as changing the angle or background colour of your product shot, or you can start copying your favourite music video director. And keep them short. A 2024 study from Facebook IQ found that the average scene length for top-performing Stories ads is 2.8 seconds, compared to 4.1 seconds for less popular ones.
Method3: Brand first and quickly
Facebook says that mobile users move through feeds 41% faster than PC users. In other words, the best brands get their point across in the first three seconds of Stories. They should do it with a clear and interesting message, if possible.
For example, Masterclass’s ads do a great job of making people interested and making them want to improve themselves. In their Story ads, famous people are used as “mentors,” and the images are used in all of their efforts. Don’t be shy—put your most interesting and on-brand shot at the top of your Story.
Method 4: Shoot up and down and think “Stories first.”
We usually tell people not to share the same material on multiple social networks because each one has its own language, quirks, and language problems. That’s even more true for Stories.
Instagram, on the other hand, says brands should only use two kinds of Stories:
- Stories-first: full-screen vertical images with Stories’ unique style and interactive parts
- Stories-optimized: a non-full-screen vertical image that has been used before for something else but has been trimmed and made to fit the needs of Stories.
- Instagram says that stories that were planned to be like this always get better results. This means that even if you’re not making content just for Stories, make it look like you did.
Method5: Plan for both sound off and sound on
Around 60% of Instagram Stories ads are seen with sound on. Whether this comes as a surprise to you or not, think about whether making quiet Stories is a missed chance for your brand.
- Tell a story.
The best way to get and keep people’s attention is to appeal to their feelings, like curiosity, empathy, excitement, or outrage. And how do people do that? Telling stories.
It might be time to tell the official story of your brand or add mini-documentaries about your niche to your content. Feel free to come up with ideas, but remember to connect them to the general goals you have for your Instagram strategy. Next, plan out how you’ll tell your Instagram Story by making a sketch.
- Offer value.
People need things they didn’t know they needed, and stories are a great place to give them. If you want to get hits (or swipes up), you should think about what your brand can do for people. If that’s hard to define, you might want to make some target personas to help you get clear.
- Try new things.
Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri says that Stories is where people “share a lot more funny moments, raw moments, and real moments.”
In the case of brands, this can mean picking how “real” they want to be. For example, if you go the studio route and have something that looks very polished and expensively shot, it has a 97% chance of raising brand recognition compared to a more natural DIY route.
In Conclusion
Putting a tag on someone is a great way to show your thanks and build community. When you share someone else’s information or work with someone else in your field, make sure to tag their account. The people who watch get to learn more, and your partner gets more attention.
