Instagram stories: an introduction

Instagram stories are ideal for sharing snapshots. They’re easy to create, quick to share, only visible for 24 hours, and you can post as many of them as you want without “bombarding” your friends’ timelines with your content.

Instagram stories are also becoming increasingly important for marketers and businesses, and can provide little glimpses of what you might not want to put in an extra post.

Let’s go! How to post your first story on Instagram:

1. Tap the small camera icon in the top corner of your Instagram feed
2. Take a photo by tapping the circle or hold it down to record a video. Videos can be max. Be 15 seconds long. If you hold down the circle longer, a new story will simply be created after 15 seconds. The stories are then played directly one after the other.
3. Want to post a photo from your smartphone library to your Story? Then tap on the preview of your photo album in the lower left corner of the screen and select the photo you want.

On we go! How to edit your stories on Instagram

Use color filters

Swipe left or right to add a color filter to your photo or video. For example, the circles under the eyes from the weekend can be easily retouched away or the lighting conditions can be corrected. Of course, our office puppy doesn’t need that at all!

You can also adjust the size of the photo by zooming in or out.

Original image

Processed with filter

Use more filters

The other selectable filters are a bit reminiscent of Snapchat. Whether hearts flying into the picture, halo or professional make-up – here is guaranteed for everyone the right thing.

Edit font

Tap on your photo to write something with your keyboard. You can change the font in the top screen by tapping it, and you can easily change the size of the written text by tapping on it and zooming. You can also tag or mention other Instagram users in your Story by first typing @ and then the name of the account you want to mention. Instagram users you tag will be notified of your mention.

With the other drawing tools, you can also draw things handwritten on your image.

Animated gifs

Everyone knows them, everyone loves them: gifs. The small animated stickers are probably there for conceivable emotional state. You can easily find the right gif for your story by entering the appropriate search term (e.g. excited) into the search box. After that, the appropriate gifs for your story will be suggested. You can easily adjust the size of the gifs by tapping and zooming.

Archive stories on Instagram

If you want to use your stories for longer than just 24 hours, you can easily archive them. To do this, you must first activate the archiving of your stories.

This is how it works: You navigate to the “Privacy” item in your settings and then to the “Story” item. Then activate the “Save to archive” button.

What is this good for? Well, for your highlights of course!

Tip: In order to always have your digital content at hand and to make the best possible use of it, it is also a good idea to archive it in parallel in a professional digital asset management system.

How to create story highlights

For your story highlights, you can set different categories to which you can assign stories shared in the past. For example, if you set “Workshops” as a story highlight, you can assign all the stories of the workshops you attended to that story highlight. The same works with vacations or any topic you can think of!

Your selected highlights will be published on your profile and can be viewed without any time limit.

Here’s how it works:

• • Tap the + on your profile
  • Your archived stories will now open
  • Select the stories you want to be featured in your highlight
  • Name the highlight and adjust the cover if necessary
  • Your highlights can be viewed as often as you like

Have fun sharing! :)