Last Updated on April 10, 2024 by Ali Hamza
Snapchat is the platform that came up with the concept of stories. But now other social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn have joined as well. But Instagram is arguably the platform to make use of the stories feature. Besides uploading usual stories, you can also post a collection of your favorite stories as highlights.
Besides being an exciting feature of the platform, stories can also be an effective tool in marketing. Creating engaging stories can help you retain and grow your audience. The best thing is to make your stories more exciting, there are several ways for customizing your stories.
Explore Sticker Options
When you enter the add story option, you get the option of either adding an existing photo or taking a new one. Whatever path you take, some options appear on your screen. Select the sticker option and several stickers will appear on your screen. You may find a suitable one from these sticker choices.
Apart from regular stickers, there are two more options that you may have not explored yet. These features are of adding another picture from the gallery or taking a new one that appears on top of your selected image. You can adjust the size of the image with two fingers. Use your thumb to keep the symmetry of the new media file the way you want. This feature can make your Instagram stories unique and attention-grabbing.
It may take a couple of minutes to customize your first story with this feature. But once you get used to this feature, editing stories won’t feel like a hassle at all.
Customizations with Draw Options
Many users, especially new ones, may not have checked out how to use draw options. A more obvious use of this feature for most users can be to add their doodles to the stories. You can pick from the color options given below. You can pick from different options of drawing pens, glowing inks, and effects with colors. You can increase or decrease the size of the tip from the options present on the side.
Ideas like stretching strokes with glowing inks can add a nice zing to the stories. Also, similar usage of other draw options can significantly enhance the appeal of your stories. And you can master them by utilizing them in your routine practice.
If you are promoting a post through a story, there’s an interesting feature you can try. Press the color option for 2 to 3 seconds. Your whole screen will turn the color you pressed. Then you can select the eraser option and draw whatever pattern you want to give a teaser of the original post. This way you can direct the audience to the post. You smartly use this feature to direct more people to the profiles from stories.
Use Effects on Your Stories
Next to stickers, you can see the effects option. Press the option and check out a range of effects to select from. Such effects can be applied to both videos and images. A major benefit of adding this feature to images is that they will convert into animations. So, there are plenty of occasions where this feature can come in handy.
When you take photos or shoot videos directly from the Instagram app, there are several other effects to select. For starters, you use the classic boomerang effect. It’s been out there for a long time and is still popular among users. There are plenty of other effects to explore. Also, you can expand the library of effects over time as many creators launch their effects.
Layout Option for Collage Stories
After some event, uploading dozens of images in your stories may seem like the right approach. But from the audience’s perspective, fewer stories may be easier to scroll. Creating collages through the layout option may be better.
The layout option is super easy to use. Just open the post a story option and select the images you want to combine in a collage. When you select next, the app will ask you if you want to post photos separately or create a layout. Collage options are rather simple and straightforward. You can use other apps like Canva to create other exciting collage stories.
Conclusion
All these features are already available in the Instagram application. It is up to you how you creatively make use of these options to create more engaging stories for your Instagram. But to make the best use of these features, you need creative social media managers. Usually, Cox Internet service is offered in a variety of different packages of speeds and features designed to fit your needs. Therefore, it is best to have some type of screening to have creative people for social media onboard.
