Instagram Stories: My Complete Guide

Instagram Stories: My complete guide to finding your content and professionalism in your IG stories.

A lot of people, including myself, struggle with finding content for their stories and also make it more aesthetic for their audience. With years of experience on social media and lots of reading, I have found my holy grail IG story tips.

Instagram stories are great because not only does it allow creativity for creators but it also boosts engagement on pages. They say that posting up to 10 stories a day automatically boosts your page above on the scroll. Mind you, for some people, finding 10 different stories to post can be difficult. I've posted my OOTD and my morning coffee, what the fuck else am I supposed to share? What do people want to see?

Obviously for people who have no desire to grow an Instagram following, this probably doesn't matter to you but for those who are here for the Instagram engagement tips, pay attention.

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#1 Finding Content: What do I post?

Finding content is the hardest part. Sure it's easy to post a quick coffee pic but followers might get sick of seeing my same Starbucks cup. So where do I get inspiration and motivation to create my daily posts?

When I first started getting serious about my Instagram page, I totally neglected the stories. They hadn't quite blown up yet, it was a new feature and honestly I didn't even care to learn about it. Until I realized how much small influencers and bloggers like myself can benefit from them! My first tip would be find content that inspires you and do not give a flying fuck what anybody thinks about it. Like I said, can't go wrong with a coffee post but you have to spice it up a little. I'm sure when I first started people were like "great Kenzie with her fucking coffee posts again". It was literally the only thing I found interesting in my day. I never did much, nor was I mentally stable enough to motivate myself to post shit about my day. Once I got in to it, I came up with more ideas like sharing posts and links to items I was wearing on my page. Now listen, I had some irrelevant dumb fuck message me saying how I must think I'm "so famous" because of the amount I was uploading during the day. If some dumb fuck dick shit fuck face ever tries shitting on your content, compare yourself to them. You have a hobby, passion and creativity. What does he have besides a big mouth? Exactly, post whatever the hell you want. Most important tip right there.

#2 Editing: Create Professional Looking Stories

This tip is one that honestly took a bit of time and effort to really master. At the end of the day, posting anything and everything can attract engagement, but imagine them with a professional layout that matched your aesthetic and niche perfectly.

One of the best ways to get any kind of editing tips and inspiration is your best friend, Pinterest. I swear to god this app has fucking everything, it's ridiculous. Photo Inspo, editing ideas, wallpapers, posting schedules, nail ideas, fuck the list goes on. If you dont plan on using any fancy apps to help your editing, then go take a look at Pinterest. I learned so many tips on editing stories from the main page. For example, do you ever try and post a photo on your story but the background is some do do ass colour that matches absolutely nothing? Try this.

When uploading this photo to my story, Instagram automatically put this colour background and yes you can easily change the background but it immediately covers your photo.

Instead, I took an already white background and prepped that in my Instagram app. Next I went to my camera roll and found the photo I wanted. From there you click the icon on the lower left corner and press "copy image".

Then, heading back to the Instagram app it gives you the option of adding your image as a sticker. You can even add multiple pictures to the same story slide. If you already knew this tip, sorry for wasting your time but I also may have just made someones life so much easier.

In addition to this, if you are more serious about this stuff, there are also apps that help you create amazing Instagram stories. Some of my favourites are Canva and Unfold. Both super easy to use with templates for various events and posts. I like using them mostly for my brands content but it also comes in handy when I want to make something a little more professional looking for promos and sponsorships. Both are free apps but include memberships with extra features and in my experience the small fee is so worth it. For those with a business, Unfold is an app created by Squarespace, so you are able to link it entirely to your website which makes life so easy. It can connect all your colour palettes, products and images so everything is in one place.

#3 Posting Consistency: Don't be a man. Be Consistent

Sorry for the aggressive hit towards men there, just needed to let it out. Anyway, one thing you are always told when creating content is the importance of consistency. People are going to hate you if you post 10 stories one day of you living the best life and then you fall off the god damn planet for like 5 weeks. Its confusing and definitely isn't convincing anyone you are worth following. Give the people what they want! I use to spend every night before bed, brainstorming and preparing stories for the next day. Whether it is finding links to clothing pieces so I can share a "shop the look" (which is consistent for me considering I don't think many people care where I bought my pants) or just my outfit of the day. It's interesting and gives followers something to look at and want to come back for. Cause lets face it, what are you doing on your 30 minute lunch break at work? Yea. Scrolling your feed and tapping endlessly through stories, so spice up someones day dude. Post what inspires you. Post whatever the fuck you want and if anyone wants to judge that, knock them down a notch.

Become a Pro. Put in the work.

Obviously, I could have shared 10 more tips on editing within the Instagram app and showed you how Canva works but we would be here for approximately 3 weeks, so I am going to leave the research and creativity up to you. Trust me its worth it. I gave you the basics and hopefully a little motivation. Click the button below to view my saved pins and ideas that have inspired me from Pinterest.

Pinterest

If you have ideas or things you want to read about, make sure you leave it in my message box under the "contact" page. Everyone seemed to enjoy my story telling on Todd's Ego so be ready for more crazy stories soon. Thank you for reading The411atTwentyOne.