How to Create Instagram Stories

Do you want to learn how to publish Instagram Stories?

Are you wondering how engagement works for Instagram Stories?

Well, Instagram Stories allow you to record live video or take photos with your smartphone and add them to a story that lasts for only 24 hours.

In this post, you’ll discover how to create Instagram Stories and how to respond to people who engage with your Stories.

 

What Instagram Stories Look Like

                                          The top of the Instagram news feed showing users with the most recent stories.

 

When you click on one of these circles, you’ll see that user’s Instagram story for the day in 10-second consisting of photos or video.

                                      Scenes from Instagram’s story introducing Stories.

When you visit the Instagram user’s profile that has a current story, you’ll see a circle around the user’s profile photo. When you click on the profile photo, you’ll be taken to that user’s current story.

                       Profile photo indicating that an Instagram user has a current story.

Configure Your Story Settings

Now that you know how Instagram stories look, let’s see how you can create one for your business.

When it comes to Instagram Stories, you have two options. You can modify your privacy settings for each individual story you publish or for all of your stories from your main Instagram settings. To do the latter, go to your Instagram profile and click on the settings wheel icon at the top right.

and click on the Story Settings under the Account section.



From here, you can select specific people whom you do not want to see your stories. You can also choose whom you want to be able to send you messages from your stories.



Note that these are the default settings you’ll have for each individual story you publish as well.

Create Your First Instagram Story

After doing the settings for your stories come back to your account and tap on the circled + button at the top left of your Instagram screen to create your first story.



You can use the icons at the bottom of your screen from left to right to configure flash settings (if you’re taking a photo), take a photo or video, or switch the camera from front- to rear-facing. If you tap and hold the center button, you can record a 10-second video.

 Note that you can turn your camera orientation to landscape, but Instagram will post your photo or video in portrait mode to your story.Once you finish taking your photo or recording your video, you have the option to add text or draw on your photo or video using the options at the top right of the screen. At the bottom of the screen, you have the options to cancel and start over, or download the photo or video to your camera roll.

Once you’re satisfied, tap on the check-mark at the bottom to add the photo or video to your story.



Once you’ve created your story, you’ll see your own profile photo at the top of the news feed. Your photo will always appear first so you can easily access your current story at all times.



If you want to add to your story, tap on the circled + icon at the top left to record video or take a photo. Each new video or photo you take will be added to the end of your story and lasts for 24 hours.

View Analytics for Your Story

When people start to view your story, you’ll see a number at the bottom of each portion of your story.

You can swipe up on that number to see more details such as how many views you have for each portion of your story and who viewed those portions of your story.



From this view, you can also download the photo and video portions of your story, share the photo and video portions of your story as a post to your Instagram profile, or delete the photo and video portions of your story. You can change your story settings using the settings wheel icon at the top left.

How can you use these analytics? Let’s say that you have one particular photo or video that is getting a lot of views. You may want to share that to your profile and use it to encourage more people to view your story. Or, if you notice a significant drop-off of views at a particular part of your story, you might want to delete that photo or video to see if people will continue viewing past that point once you’ve removed that particular photo or video.

Conclusion

In Instagram with new updates it’s important to find ways to rise to the top of the news feed. By adding new content to your Instagram story, you can keep your business at the top of your followers’ news feeds throughout the day. The key is knowing when they’ll be online and what type of live content will keep their attention!

What do you think? Are you using Instagram Stories? What has been the reception so far? Let us know in the comments below.