Fun, creative Instagram story ideas for your business
16th April 2019
A few months ago, we shared our guidelines with you on making the most of Instagram Stories for Business and Instagram Story Highlights for Business. By now, we’re sure you’ve got to grips with the basics of making these fun features work for you and your brand. The question is, are you ready to take it up to the next level? We’re ready to share all some of our best Insta Story tips, Stories secrets and cool Instagram Story ideas with you. Continue reading below and by the time you’re done, you’ll have the tools to create the most engaging and creative Instagram Story content around!
#HowDoYou share feed posts & IGTV videos to your Instagram story?
Let’s start off simple, with one of the easiest ways to use your Stories to point followers in the right direction by drawing attention to your existing feed content or IGTV content.
- To share one of your main feed posts to your story, simply navigate to the post you’d like to share
- Tap on the paper plane icon underneath the photo (next to the comment button)
- Select ‘Add to Story’.
This will add the post as a block into your story, which you can tap to customise and decorate as you would with any other story features. The process is similar with an IGTV video, just head to your channel and find the video you’d like to share, tap the paper plane icon and again select ‘Add Video to Your Story.’ Using either of these features means that anyone viewing your story will be able to tap on the photo or video you have shared and be sent straight to it!
#HowDoYou make your Instagram story text stand out?
Ever heard of stacking text? What about gradient text? If not, your stories are about to get a lot more interesting! To stack text, simply write the same thing more than once in the same font and size, then, position on top of each other to give a dramatic 3D look to whatever you have written.
Gradient text is a little more difficult, but great fun once you’ve got the hang of it! Here’s an easy tutorial:
- First, select the text you’d like to add a gradient to (our tip is to only select one line at a time)
- Then, with one finger hold down a colour to bring up the full-colour menu and with another finger press one of the text selectors.
- Now for the tricky bit: as you slide one finger along the text, simultaneously slide the other finger along the colour menu.
Don’t worry, you’ll get better with time, and you’ll have beautifully eye-catching rainbow text to show for it!
(And if you ever have enough time to perfect text that’s both stacked and with a gradient, let us know…)
#HowDoYou gamify your slider polls?
By now, you’ve probably seen the emoji slider poll sticker popping up on Instagram stories here and there. By prompting you to use an emoji slider to rate something or someone, polls are elevated to the next level, giving you much more information than a simple, conventional ‘yes’ or ‘no’ poll question.
Something you may not have thought of though is using emoji slider polls to gamify content for your audience. This is a really funny Instagram Story idea, and it’s so easy to implement because there’s no extra effort involved.
Once a user has placed their vote, the chosen emoji ‘floats’ upwards on the screen, giving a great opportunity to make some fast, fun, gamification content certain to keep your followers entertained. (See our example: using the chocolate emoji slider to feed our PR Content Manager, James!)
If you’re on the hunt for any more Instagram poll game ideas, we’d recommend taking a Pinterest deep dive – there’s endless Instagram Story inspiration to be discovered!
#HowDoYou use the questions sticker to its full potential?
Do you find yourself constantly answering the same questions about your brand or business? The questions sticker is a great feature for asking and answering questions publicly rather than via DM, but did you ever think to make the answers you post a little more permanent?
By hosting a Q&A session via the question sticker on stories, then adding your responses to a Story Highlight pinned to your profile named ‘FAQ’, you can ensure that anyone visiting your profile for the first time has the answers to all their questions ready to hand immediately.
Don’t just react to your audience’s needs, preempt them and be prepared with the answers by using this excellent Instagram feature to its full potential.
#HowDoYou find and use boomerang’s ‘secret settings’?
Everyone loves a good Boomerang, but there’s more to one than you might think. If you don’t have the Boomerang app yet, stop and download it right now, as we’re about to let you in on a secret… Not many know this, but Boomerang has a hidden settings menu, and we’re going to tell you how to use it.
To open the Boomerang ‘secret settings’ menu (on an iPhone), simply tap the screen multiple times with four fingers. This opens up a world of options, including the ability to adjust your settings in such a way that lets you film ‘levitation’ boomerangs. Here are the details so you can try it for yourself:
- Resolution: 1080p
- Boomerang Mode: Forward and Back (pause)
- Frame Count: 3 frames
- Long Capture Frame Count: 25.0fps
Now simply find a subject and ask them to jump. When you capture them in the air with these settings, they will magically ‘levitate’. Just imagine the possibilities!
#HowDoYou build anticipation with a ‘tap to reveal’ style story?
Have you just released a new product? Worked with a new influencer? Discovered something hidden or exciting? Or just looking for a fun way to show something off? The quirkiest way and best Instagram story ideas are to build anticipation in an Instagram Story is to create a ‘tap to reveal’ sequence, allowing your followers to tap through your story and reveal something (or someone) piece by piece.
Tap to reveal Stories are much easier to create than you might think, we’ll walk you through the process step-by-step:
- First, start making a story by selecting the photo of what you’d like to reveal.
- Then, tap the pen icon, choose a colour, and hold down on the screen to fill it completely with your colour of choice.
- Write ‘tap to reveal’ or something along those lines, then save the image.
- Next, delete the text and use the eraser to rub out a little of the colour, revealing a small section of your chosen photo.
- Save this and repeat until you have multiple photos saved, each one revealing more and more of your subject.
- Then all you need to do is upload this sequence in the correct order!
Viewers will enjoy the excitement and interactivity of tapping to reveal, generating hype and anticipation around whatever you’ve chosen to feature.
If you need guidance or advice on these features, any more Instagram Story Ideas for Business, or anything else to do with Instagram, we’re here to help! Just drop us a message and we can chat about what our enthusiastic social media managers and clever content creators could do for you and your business. Our Instagram experts can even create a bespoke Instagram content strategy for your business, complete with a unique set of Story templates to maximise the performance of your account.