Level up your Instagram Stories engagement with these easy steps

Content on Instagram stories is highly curated and needs to be of very good quality in order to help amplify your brand awareness. It is crucial to match the stories to your brand aesthetics as this of course supports your brand identity and lets users recognize your brand immediately.

Over & Later offer a free online workshop in which you learn how to design Instagram stories like a pro and use templates and effects:

Be creative with the text and use Instagram features

Instagram offers many features to spice up your stories. Just recently they have launched a major design update for their polls that had been the same two-option tool since its introduction in 2017. Now, creators can choose between four possible responses and different colors.

Another way to liven up your aesthetic are the various font options Instagram offers. They’re ranging from rainbow or ombre text, to 3D titles or simple serif or italic fonts. Mastering the options can draw in new audiences and generate great interest. Although, don’t go too crazy. While you want to think out of the box and experiment with different styles, be who you or your brand are. Who do you want to attract with these stories? Adapt the stories to your target audience. For instance, if you promote a minimalistic brand, be sparing with the glitter and too much color. Choose mature options for your stories.  

Fair-fashion retailer “The Slow Label”, founded by Austrian blogger Anna Laura Kummer, uses clean and earthy tones to promote its clothes as well as elegant and subtle fonts.

Categorize your Instagram stories with highlights

With the highlight feature, it is easy to categorize your brand’s stories, your content and give a global look of your profile. Additionally, it helps your followers to deep dive into your brand’s story or former collaborations.

For the stories highlights, brands and influencers alike should create their highlights cover according to their visual identity. Meanwhile, there are different approaches. You can either choose a cover from the stories you have posted, or create a custom cover.

Italian photographer Sam Youkilis simply chooses one of the stories as cover. He gives them different titles, which corresponds with his overall content. During his travels he captures scenes from everyday life, why he categorizes his stories by date, too.

Private stories likes is one of the new features that Instagram has launched in April 2022. As users can now directly react to stories by pressing the heart icon on the right bottom of the screen, DMs do not get flooded with reactions anymore. This is part of the app’s strategy to improve the messaging experience on the app. Read up on the several other new features on Instagram in this Kolsquare article!

Choose the right app to edit your Instagram stories

Today, it is not necessary anymore to edit your Instagram stories with Photoshop, as there are so many great and easy to handle apps out there. This is a short and approved list of apps to use for your next Instagram stories:

1. Unfold: templates, clean and minimalistic
2. Storyluxe: templates, such as polaroid and instant film, neon, floral, and more
3. Inshot: simple video editing and backgrounds
4. Canva: templates to build from scratch, customizing fonts, images, colors and different layouts
5. VSCO: photo and video filters plus video editing

However fun it might be to try out every template there is, of course you have to consider your brand’s visual identity again. Find your favorites and stick to them. The only thing you have to do within the App now is add music to your stories and they are good to go. Another new feature, launched in April 2022, is the Supersynch that allows creators to upload multiple stories with a minimum of four pictures at the same time. They will then change according to the beat of the music you have chosen for this story. Editing and posting Instagram stories has never been easier!

Recently, social networks have committed to develop more tools to help creators monetize and manage their activities, as KOLs have been professionalizing their work and people have started to notice. In the Kolsquare study “Influencer Marketing in 2022: insights, projections and trends” professionals can have a more thorough look at the predictions and trends for 2022 in general. With the aim to explain the change of communicating and reaching audiences for long term relationships, the analysis guides any brand for the upcoming challenges.