Instagram is a platform where you can do tons of things and make yourself visible to the world. It is a beautiful social media platform to not only expose yourself, but also to expose your brand. It is a perfect tool to use it personally as well as professionally. More than 86% of the people in the world have Instagram accounts. So, it is beneficial for professional brands to increase the conversion rate through Instagram also. Okay, now coming back to Instagram stories. I am very sure that you would have used the option of Instagram stories at least once in your life. These days, social media is used like documentation. Where you go, what you eat and drink, who you see, and what’s most memorable. People share their life’s current scenario through Instagram stories that lasts for 24 hours. You can share the glimpse of your life through the Instagram stories and communicate to your people through it. Below you’ll find what is Instagram stories and the ways to make it exciting for your Instagram followers. So, stick till the end to find a lot of interesting things about it.
What are Instagram Stories?
Instagram stories allow the Instagram users to share their glimpse of the life through photos and videos. Just like WhatsApp status and snapchat stories, even Instagram stories disappears after 24 hours, but you can keep them in highlights forever.
How do Instagram Stories Work?
As mentioned earlier, Instagram stories allow you to short videos and images to a temporary story. You can add stickers, time stamps, and doodles to each story and apply certain filters and effects to make it look creative. People can view your story if your account is public, but if you have a private account only your followers can view it.
Viewers also have the option of directly responding to your story via direct message (DM), but you can also disable replies in your app’s settings.
You can also track who has viewed your story at what time by just swiping up your screen.
What is the use of Using Instagram Stories?
Instagram stories are the best way to engage with people whether you’re sharing a story from a brand account or your own personal profile.
Around 500 million people use Instagram stories, which automatically increases the time spent in the Instagram app to an average of 30 minutes. a lot of brands have already seen success in publishing content through this app. Instagram stories have fueled the growth of many brands. Whether you are trying to grow brand awareness, grow traffic to videos or newsletters outside of Instagram, or share sponsored posts, Instagram stories allows you to publish fun disappearing content that infuses brand voice and personality without taking up too much of the user’s time.
How Long are Instagram Stories:
Your video inside the story can last up to 15 seconds long before cutting to the next piece of the content. The Instagram stories will not disappear from your account until 24 hours.
The individual videos which you add to your Instagram story each have a maximum roll time of 15 seconds, despite, Instagram stories run into a time limit of 15 seconds, there are ways to play longer videos in the story. You can split the video into the 15 seconds and keep it as a story. You can split a video that is longer than 15 seconds into the 15 second segments. Here are some mobile apps that can make it happen.
- Continual (iOS only): Continual is an iOS app that automatically splits your videos into 15-second segments so that you can upload them to your Story. You also have the option to trim videos for Facebook Stories (20 seconds).
- Storeo (iOS only): Like Continual, Storeo splits up your long videos into 15-second snippets for uploading into your Story. It also allows you to create Facebook Stories. The free version will automatically put a watermark on your Story; we recommend paying the one-time fee to upgrade.
- Story Cutter (iOS): Story Cutter will trim your Story into HD and 4K 15-second snippets. There are no limits to the length of your video, and clips are exported in chronological order so it’s easy to upload them.
- Story Cutter (Android): Like the similarly-named iOS version, the Story Cutter Android app will let you split videos into smaller segments to upload to your Instagram Story. You can record videos using the app or upload an existing video from your gallery.
- CutStory (iOS only): CutStory is a trimmer for Instagram Stories, as well as an editor. Add effects, templates, and text to your Story prior to uploading. There’s a free version, but your Story will be watermarked. We recommend upgrading.
How to view Instagram Stories:
- Open Instagram and Navigate through Stories:
To view Instagram stories, open your Instagram mobile app and tap the home icon button on the bottom left-hand corner of your screen. Instagram stories cannot be viewed on the desktop site. Once you navigated through Instagram home screen, you’ll see a series of circular icons along the top which represents the stories.
- Tap on a circular item to view the story:
Each circular icon that you see in the top screen having a gradient circular around it, denoted the user has currently shared a story. Tap on it and expand the user’s story.
- Tap to Navigate between a story’s photos and videos:
A single Instagram story can contain numerous individual photos and videos strung together in order of when you posted them. The first piece of the content that you see will always be the recent one.
- Swipe to Navigate from one story to the other:
Swiping left to right while viewing Instagram story will allow you to shuffle between stories from different stories.
- Use an Instagram story viewer to view stories privately:
Instagram allows you to watch stories anonymously by using the third-party tool without the user knowing. You might have tried this while scouting freelancers and don’t want them to see you first. Some story viewers allow you to auto save the story.
Additional Stories You Can Also include:
- Instafollowers.co’
- Stories IG
- Insta-stories.online
- StoriesDown
- Dumpor
In this article you have learnt in detail about the Instagram stories. Get ready and post them to increase the engagement of audience.