Many photographers use Instagram to show off their work. But other than posting images, you can also get engagement and promote your work through Stories. Rachel and Daniel of Mango Street share five fun ways to turn Instagram Stories into a useful tool for interacting with your audience and promoting your work.
1. Add new gifs
Instagram offers tons of gifs within the app. However, you can add custom gifs to your stories, too. Save the gif you want to use to your camera roll and copy it from there. Then, within Instagram Story, tap to add text and paste the gif. You can resize it and place it wherever you like, and this can make your stories more fun and more personal.
2. Use different fonts
If you’re bored with Instagram’s native fonts, or simply want something that better fits your style, you can add new fonts. Apps like Over or Fonts allow you to add plenty of new fonts to your Stories.
3. Swipe-up link
Some Instagram profiles have the swipe-up link available. If you don’t have it, you can still direct your followers to an external link. The workaround for this is IGTV. You need a 15 s or longer IGTV video that tells your followers to click in the top left corner to go to your link. For the title, write something like “tap here,” and for the description, type in your URL.
Now, create a story and add the text to tell your viewers to swipe up. Click the “add link” icon and choose IGTV Video. Select the video you’ve just made, and post the story. And that’s it.
4. Add video
If you want to promote a YouTube video, you can post a 15 s or shorter video clip to your Story. Resize it and place it where you want it to be, and you can add related image, gifs or text to add more context. You could also use the swipe-up hack from the previous tip to direct your followers to the full video on YouTube.
5. Background templates
If you want to keep a consistent look throughout your stories, background templates are a good way to do it. You can create your own background templates using the app Over or Adobe Spark. Create the backgrounds that fit your style, add text in your business’ font, add your logo… And you can use there templates every time you post a Story.
While Instagram Stories are often full of junk (as well as Instagram feed), it doesn’t mean it has to be that way. You can use this platform in many creative ways to gain a new audience and get more interaction with the existing followers.
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