Today, social media is all about documentation. Where you go, what you eat and drink, who you see, and what’s most memorable: These are the typical fodder of Instagram Story — seconds-long glimpses of people’s lives, shared on Instagram for only 24 hours.
Below, we have made a guide for you to learn what Instagram Story is, how to share them with your followers, and how to ensure these Stories are exactly what your audience wants to see. In this post, we will cover the following.
What is Instagram Story?
Instagram Story permits Instagram users to share pictures and videos to their “Story” — which is visible to followers of the user’s Instagram account — and to particular users the Story’s sender follows. Like in Snapchat, Instagram Stories are ephemeral, which means they are available within 24 hours.
Your Instagram Story is published separately from the pictures and videos found in the tiled gallery of one’s Instagram profile. And though you may know the basics of sharing them, there are hidden tools within the app that could make the pictures and videos you add to your Story more creative and engaging.
How to Use Instagram Story for Small Business
How Do Instagram Stories Work?
Instagram Stories could drive a lot of engagement and value — whether you are sharing a Story from a brand account or your own personal profile.
Since launching back in August 2016, a total of 250 million Instagram users have begun sharing disappearing content on Instagram Stories — contributing to the large jump in time spent in-app every day from 24 minutes to 32.
On top of this, a lot of brands have already seen success publishing content to this platform. Instagram Stories have fueled the development of brands such as Teen Vogue, Insider, and Bustle. Whether publishers are attempting to develop brand awareness, develop traffic to videos or newsletter outside of Instagram, or share sponsored content, publishers are flocking to Instagram to publish fun disappearing content that infuses brand voice and personality without taking up too much of the average techie’s dwindling attention span.
Besides, Instagram Stories are credited with fueling the huge growth of Instagram Direct — private one-to-one messaging between users within the app. Instagram Direct has grown into one of the most prevalent messaging apps in the world with a staggering 375 million users.
Even more impressive, TechCrunch reports that one in 5 Instagram Stories shared by a brand receives a Direct reply — giving brands a direct line to connect with their audience and learn more about them.
How long is Instagram Story?
Instagram Stories last 24 hours on your profile before disappearing, however, a video inside your Story could be up to 15 seconds long before cutting to the next piece of content. You could also utilize a third-party app to segment a longer video into 15-second increments to add to your Story.
Just as Instagram Stories only last 24 hours before disappearing, the pictures and video themselves have a time limit when users view and play them.
As a blanket rule, the individual videos you add to your Instagram Story each have a maximum roll time of 15 seconds. When you post a video to your Instagram Story, for instance, it will play for up to 15 seconds, regardless of how long the original video was, and then finish.
Despite Instagram Stories’ 15-second runtime limit, there are methods to play longer videos in your Story. Particularly, you could split a video that is longer than 15 seconds into 15-second segments and add each segment to your Instagram Story so they play one after another. Here are some mobile apps that could help you make it occur:
- Continual (iOS only)
- Storeo (iOS only)
- Story Cutter for iOS
- Story Cutter for Android
- CutStory (iOS only)
How to View Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories appear at the top of your screen if you are on the Instagram cell app. As a result of they are usually the first pieces of content users see once they open Instagram, these Stories could get lots of engagement and assist you to promote your common Instagram picture gallery to more users.
1. Open Instagram and navigate to the home screen.
To begin viewing Instagram Stories, open your Instagram mobile app and tap the home icon on the bottom-lefthand corner of your screen. Instagram Stories aren’t available for viewing on the desktop website.
Once you have navigated to Instagram’s home screen, you will see a series of circular icons along the top, each of which represents the active Stories posted by the users you follow. These icons are highlighted inside a red square in the screenshot below. As you could see, your own Story is available for viewing (and adding to) on the far left of the Stories you follow.
2. Tap on a circular icon to view that user’s Story.
Each circular icon you see at the top of your home screen shows you a small preview of the Story that user has posted. Tap on it to expand the user’s Story — it will either be a photo or a video, and the latter will play automatically when you tap on the Story.
3. Tap to navigate between a Story’s pictures and videos.
A single Instagram Story can contain numerous individual pictures and videos strung together in order of when the user posted them. The first piece of content you will see will be the most recent one. Tap your mobile device’s screen to cut to the next picture or video that the user has posted to their Story.
4. Swipe to navigate from one Instagram Story to another.
Swiping left and right while viewing an Instagram Story will permit you to shuffle between Stories from different users. If you first open an Instagram Story, you will see the following menu:
Use the above screenshot as a reference for viewing the Instagram Stories of the accounts you follow.