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Instagram is the little garden of Eden for every content creator and business holder where they are free to share their creative outcomes and marketing advertisements. It is a photo-video-sharing social networking service that has been established as one of the biggest social media and online platforms in the world.
Launched in late 2010, Instagram gives its users the ability to upload media and edit it with filters, stickers, music, polls, and add hashtags to increase the posts or stories’ popularities. Speaking of which, Instagram stories are a set of photos or videos that users can share for 24 hours and then automatically disappear unless added to the Instagram profile as story highlights.
And while you may think you know everything about stories and how they work, many important hacks remain underrated and unknown to some users and that contribute to a better user experience. Today we’ll be exploring the top five story hacks that you probably didn’t know existed.
1. Story Downloader
Who would’ve known that we were able to download stories on our phones? All those lost tricks and news we saw in our friends’ stories could’ve been stored, and all our stories as well! That’s right, Instagram allows its users to download stories, affecting users’ experience on the app as they can store their memories and things they wanted to remember or use after 24 hours.
All you have to do is tap Your Story, tap the three stops at the bottom right and save, it will automatically find its way to your phone’s memory. It is worth mentioning that there are plenty of tools listed on Earthweb that allow you to download Instagram Stories which will fasten your downloading experience.
2. Change Background Colours
Yes, the degradation of the colors is good, but it’s becoming a bit boring to use those backgrounds all the time! It’s time for a change, and here’s the perfect hack for that. Now you’ll be able to change background colors and fill your background with a unique color of your choice.
In your story menu, select a color from the palette then press anywhere on the screen and hold two or three seconds to fill. If you want more colors, you can swipe right to see more options or press and hold down on any color to unlock the rainbow gradient of choices. Create a new look for your stories, and enjoy making unique patterns with this hack!
3. Add Effects to Your Emojis
Did you know that you could add effects to your emojis? Me neither! It’s always fun to add emojis to one’s story to describe our mood or simply to embellish our Instagram story. To make the emoji stand out, open the text tool in your story and scroll through the fonts until you find the style you like. Just like you can add movement to your text, you can also add it to your emoji. Enjoy watching your smileys dancing around!
4. Add Links to Your Story
If you have over 10K followers, then this hack is for you. Now you can add links in your Instagram story to direct your fans to another post or another page. This is quite useful especially for people with businesses for they can link their website or page in their stories to allow their followers to have instant and direct access to their main website. To do so, click on the Link Icon in your new Story post and add the link URL.
Once you’re done, confirm your link and upload your story with the link. Your followers will have to swipe up to access the link you have published. Now if you don’t have 10K followers and you’re not certified, don’t worry! You can still be sneaky and insert links in your story. All you have to do is create a quick IGTV video with a catchy title, add the link in the caption and post it. Then open your Instagram Stories and select +IGTV video from the icon on top of the screen and select that video. The link will appear automatically.
5. Unlock More Colours for Your Story
Sometimes, more is never enough; so how about unlocking all colors and shades? Do you want to post a story with an announcement but you’re torn on what color the background should be? Don’t worry, we got you covered.
This Instagram hack allows you to explore custom colors and choose what color to add to your story. To do so, open your Instagram story and select the brush tool. Tap any of the color circles that are available and hold for a few seconds, the color slider will open and you’ll be able to choose the color you want. Another technique would be applying the eyedropper tool on a shade in an image to grab the exact color to use. Make it funky and add your personal touch, everyone will be surprised!
With these hacks on your mind, create more stories and unleash your creativity while making aesthetic and personal content that will make everyone’s jaws drop.
David Prior
David Prior is the editor of Today News, responsible for the overall editorial strategy. He is an NCTJ-qualified journalist with over 20 years’ experience, and is also editor of the award-winning hyperlocal news title Altrincham Today. His LinkedIn profile is here.
