Image: Alexander Shatov on Unsplash
Instagram has shared a list of 6 tips, tricks and features you can use to boost engagement on your Stories. Many businesses use Instgram for marketing and brand awareness and 90% of Instagram’s 1 billion users follow at least one business. So it makes sense to use everything at your disposal to boost your content and engagement.
Here 6 quick tips and tricks from Instagram to make your content stand out and boost engagement with your audience.
1. Add Yours stickers and templates
The Add Yours sticker is a way to let others contribute to your story thread, increasing engagement and reach for your content. You can share the sticker and see who responds to it in their own Stories.
With Add Yours templates you can add GIFs, text or images to your story that will become a template for responses with a structured framework. Select “Add Yours Templates” from the sticker tray. Create a custom template or tap the dice for ideas. It’s a good way to encourage people to join in the conversation.
2. Mention someone after you post a story
You can mention people even after you've posted your story, so they can share it to their story. Just tap the three dots to “More” and then “Add Mention”.
Forgot to tag someone in your story? No worries, we’ve all been there. You can still mention friends even after your story is up so that they can add it to their story. Just tap the three dots to “More,” then “Add Mention.”
3. Use Layout to make a collage
You can add multiple photos into the same story and use Layout to bring them together in a collage.
Before taking a photo, tap the Layout icon. You can also tap “Change grid” to change the layout. You can then either take a series of photos or select photos from your camera roll to create your collage.
4. Fill the background with a solid colour
Use the pen tool to fill the background with a solid colour following these steps:
- Take a photo.
- Tap “Draw”.
- Select a color.
- Press and hold on the screen to fill.
To add a translucent overlay to your story follow the same steps, just select the highlighter icon before pressing the screen to fill. Press and hold on the color options to bring up a gradient view of colors you can choose from, or tap the eyedropper tool to select a color from the photo in your story.
5. Turn live photos into Boomerang
Just one tap lets you turn live photos into a Boomerang. Choose a live photo (these have the boomerang icon in the corner) from your camera roll. Simply press and hold on the photo to transform it into a Boomerang.
6. Make emojis glow
- A fun trick is to add a glowing effect to an emoji. Follow these steps:
- Use the text tool to type out your emoji.
- Select the neon cursive font and toggle on background colour. Your emoji will now have a soft surround glow.
- You can change the glow color using the color picker.
Read more on Instagram’s blog post.
