Enhance Your Instagram Stories

I am constantly inspired by the bloggers I follow. I love learning how they optimize the different social platforms to really build their brand.

Instagram Stories has been getting more popular than Snapchat these days. I admit I only get on Snapchat because they have better filters than Instagram at the moment. My kids and I have a lot of fun checking out what fun new filters pop up.

However, I have noticed bloggers/Instagram ladies utilizing Instagram Stories to grow their reach through product reviews, sharing real-life snaps and just engaging their audience.

I enjoy viewing everyone’s Instagram stories because I get to learn more about the people I follow. I love to hear the voices behind the profile and seeing the behind the scene snaps of your real life.

There are some fun tips and tricks to making your stories more fun and engaging and I wanted to share some of those tips and tricks I’ve learned recently from reading different posts and from asking my favorite Insta-friends.

First, I’ll start off with my favorite features on Instagram Stories you may not know about.

1. Add more colors to your texts! I had no clue there were more colors than the ones you see when you create your text!

How? 

a. Tap the pen icon or the “Aa” icon in the top right-hand corner to open up the brush/text tool.
b. Tap and hold any of the default color options at the bottom to open up the other color options.
c. Slide to select a customer color!

2. Layer your text to give a drop shadow effect.

How?
a.Tap the “Aa” icon and type your message
b. Next, repeat the first step using a different color
c. Arrange the top layer of text over the bottom layer so that it is slightly off-center to create a drop shadow effect

3. Create a solid color background instead of a photo. This comes in handy when you want to send a message out but don’t want to share a photo.

How?
a.Tap the pen icon and select a color
b. Now, tap and hold for a couple of seconds until the screen is filled with a solid color

4. Pinning stickers or text to videos/Boomerangs. This allows users to pin texts/stickers to a specific object or location in the video.

How?
a. Tap on the “Aa” icon and type message or tap on the sticker icon and select a sticker
b.Hold the sticker or text down to bring up the “Pin” option

Next, I’m going to share some of my favorite photo-editing apps I use regularly and one I just downloaded!

1. Pic Collage: I use this app because you can create IG Story sized collages. There are a ton of cute backgrounds and fonts and it’s a free app! 

2. Canva: This app is super cool because you can choose from pre-designed templates that you can customize for different social platforms. It also has a variety of fonts, filters, and colors!

3. Hype Type: This is a new app I just downloaded to create animated text on photos for Instagram Stories. 

I have been having so much fun playing with all the tidbits I've learned. Do you have any nifty tricks I didn't mention above? Drop me a comment and let me know! I hope you've learned something new by reading today's post! Thanks so much for stopping by!