You’ve probably already pored over our Must-Try Instagram Hacks. (It’s a enjoyable beach read, I totally get it!) Now, it’s time to master the fantastic art of the Instagram Story. It’s just basic math: If an image is worth a thousand words, an Instagram Story post must be worth a million, right? And these 20 Instagram Story hacks will make you the perfect Story-teller in town.
General Instagram Story hacks
1. Create a patterned backdrop for sharing a post on feed
Is adding a customized backdrop essential once you share a feed post on your Story? Goodness, no. However, like wearing lipstick to a Zoom meeting, sometimes it’s just good to add some pizazz to something routine.
How to do it:
- Find the feed post that you’d prefer to share and screenshot it, cropping so it’s just the post
- Next, click the paper airplane icon on that original feed post and choose “Add post to your story”
- Stretch the feed post to fill the whole screen—this seems wild, I do know, however, this may make the final post into a tappable link to the original post
- Next, open your camera roll and choose a photo to add in the background pattern.
- Then, paste in the cropped screenshot of your post on top and arrange or resize as you’d like
- Upload the whole thing
2. Add a link to a story
Unfortunately, links are only obtainable to customers with over 10,000 followers. (A disgrace for these of us with a extra, ahem, unique followers record.)
However, right when you’ve hit that sweet spot, you may include one link in each Story and your lucky, many followers will be able to swipe up to visit that URL.
How to do it:
- Be sure you have 10,000 or more followers to access this feature
- Create a new Story post
- Click on the “link” icon at the top of the screen
- You may add an IGTV video link or a web link URL
- Click Done, and a “Call to Action Added” message will appear to confirm
- If you want to edit or delete the link, just click the link icon again
- Finish editing or creating your story and upload
3. Fill the background with a solid color
The default gradient backgrounds are great, but sometimes, you’ve got one thing to say that can only be framed by a wall of blinding chartreuse.
How to do it:
- Tap the draw icon
- Choose a color from the palette (Tip: swipe right to see addition color options, or press and hold down on any particular color to open up a rainbow gradient of choices)
- Once you’ve chosen a color, press anywhere on the picture or text part of the screen and keep for a couple of seconds to fill.
4. Share with a select group of VIPs
Now that your boss and your Uncle Steve and your strata council president are all following you on Instagram, the pressure to be a professional employee/niece/neighbor can really put a damper on your best, stupidest Instagram thoughts.
Instagram’s Close Friends feature is an opportunity to share more intimate, exclusive content to a selected group of audience. For businesses, maybe it’s a way to provide with some special treatment to members or VIPs.
How to do it:
- Go to your Instagram profile, click the three lines icon in the top right corner
- Choose Close Friends
- Search for your BFFs and click “add” (there’s no limit right now on how many people this can include)
- To remove people, click on Your List and hit the remove button. They won’t be notified if you delete them.
- Now, if you go to post a story, the option to share to Close Friends can be at the bottom of the screen next to Your Story
Source: Instagram
5. Schedule your Instagram Stories in advance
We all know Stories are supposed to be a spontaneous medium. But are you actually at your desk or on your phone all day? No! You’re living your life so that you have something to make Instagram Stories about.
To know more how to schedule your Instagram Stories in advance, check this guide.
Instagram Story photo hacks
6. Make “progression” posts that build on an image
Build the drama over several Story posts by adding more new elements to the same base photos. Oooh, the suspense!
How to do it:
- Craft a Story post as usual with video, photos, text, stickers, or drawings
- Before you upload it, click the save icon at the top line to download your composition to your camera roll. In case you’ve added any gifs or music, it will be saved as a video.
- Upload your story by clicking the Send To button on the bottom right corner of the screen
- Next, start a new Story
- Select Create, then go to your camera roll and choose the first story you’ve saved
- Now, you can seamlessly build on top of that first story with additional elements
- “Save” this new creation to your camera roll and upload what you want
- Repeat as necessary
7. Create a “revealing” Story series
Uncover a mystery photos with the help of the eraser tool. This next hack includes skills from trick #3 and #7, above. Hope you’ve done your homework because this is absolutely a test.
How to do it:
- Add an image in create mode
- Now fill the screen with your favorite color (see trick #3!)
- Select the eraser tool
- Erase a bit of the color layer to reveal a small sliver of your photo underneath
- Hit the save button to download this to your camera roll… but do not upload yet
- Uncover some more of the photo by continuing to erase the color layer, hitting the save button at various stages to capture the reveal step-by-step
- When you’re done collecting all of these images, start a fresh Story post and upload that very first photo
- Post the next saved photos one by one so that followers will see the image being uncovered in stages
8. Compose a multi-image story
The more images, the merrier! Use the paste tool to add as many photos into a Story as you want. Who would dare stop you?!
How to do it:
- Open your camera roll and select a photo
- Tap the share icon, and click copy photo
- Go back in the Instagram app, paste in a text box
- Repeat to pile on the pics
Instagram Story text hacks
9. Hide hashtags and @mentions
Preserve your aesthetic vision by tucking unlighting hashtags or tags out of sight. It’s the digital equivalent of hiding your electrical cords behind your mid-century-modern desk before Architectural Digest comes a-knockin’.
How to do it:
Method 1
- Type out your hashtags and mentions
- Hit the stickers button and select your camera roll
- Add an image from your camera roll, which will be placed on top of your hashtags to obscure them
- Resize your image to fill the screen: the hashtags are technically there for Instagram to read, but human eyes won’t be able to see!
Method 2
- If you start off creating a post with an image, add a text box on top and type your hashtags and mentions
- With the text box still active, click on the rainbow wheel at the top of the screen
- Tap the eyedropper icon
- Tap a spot on the photo to change the text to that same color and blend in
- Resize the text box if necessary
10. Express yourself with even more fonts
The standard Instagram Story fonts are just the tip of the typographic iceberg.
If the in-app typewriter or Comic Sans-knockoff lettering isn’t doing it for you, find something more exciting to paste in.
How to do it:
- Head to the Instagram Fonts Generator website on desktop or mobile
- Type in your message and hit enter to see your font options
- Copy the message and paste into the Instagram Story text box
Pro tip: If you have a branded font, add your text right to an image with Photoshop, Over, or another image editing app, and then upload to Stories from there.
