Chapter 8
Adding Style to Your Stories
IN THIS CHAPTER
Discovering stickers to add flare to your stories
Adding captions for more accessibility
Exploring freehand tools to draw on your stories
Understanding the different text tools for stories
In this chapter, we explain how to take your Stories to another level by adding personalized style and content, including various stickers, animations, captions, doodles, and text. These features can be combined in a variety of ways to create your own unique style and message.
Jazzing Up Your Story Post Using Stickers
There are many fun stickers to choose from on Instagram. And they keep adding more, so there are always fun new ways to augment your content. In this section, we look at some of the more common stickers available and explain how you can use them in your content.
Stickers are available by tapping the sticker icon (the square smiley face icon at the top of the story screen; see the left image in Figure 8-1) after you’ve uploaded or taken a photo or video. Tapping the sticker icon opens a screen (or tray) with various options of stickers and emojis (see the right image in Figure 8-1).
FIGURE 8-1: Access story stickers by tapping the sticker icon that looks like a smiley face.
Location and mention stickers add more context
As discussed in Chapter 3, you can tag a location on an Instagram post, @mention someone, or use hashtags to search, you can do much the same with your Instagram stories.
Location stickers
Adding a location sticker to your post lets your followers know where you are. Including a tappable sticker in your story enables your viewers to see other posts about that location and find out more about it.
Tap the smiley face icon and then tap the Location sticker. You see a new screen with a list of nearby locations. You can scroll through this list and tap to select the location you want to add. If your location isn’t listed or the location isn’t near you when you’re adding the story, you can type in the search bar for the name of the location you want to tag. You see a list of related locations, and you can select the correct one by tapping it (see Figure 8-2).
FIGURE 8-2: Select your location from the list of locations or use the search bar to find the location of your choice.
After you select the location, the sticker appears on your story. You can pinch to zoom to make it smaller or larger. You can drag it around the screen or turn it on an angle to place it where you want.
You can also tap the location sticker to change the background of the sticker. There are typically three color options available that you can tap through (see Figure 8-3).
FIGURE 8-3: Tap the location sticker to change its color or background.
Mention stickers
If you want to tag someone in your Instagram story, you simply have to tap the @Mention sticker on the sticker selection page.
First, find the person you want to mention by typing their name or username. Relevant users who match that name appear above the keyboard (see Figure 8-4). Keep typing until you find the person you’re looking for; then tap their profile photo to select their username and add the sticker to your story. As with Location stickers, you can drag the sticker around, pinch to enlarge or shrink, and tap to change the background and color options.
FIGURE 8-4: Type the name or username of a person you want to mention with a sticker and select the user from the list of options.
You can mention multiple people in your story. Simply add another @Mention sticker for each person you want to tag.
The person or people who are tagged in your story are notified via a direct message that you tagged them. They’ll be able to see your story, and they’ll be able to share your Story to their own Story.
Add Yours, GIFs, sliders, emojis, and more
The previous two stickers are incredibly functional and help with search and exposure. But they don’t do much for the fun factor or to drive engagement. Fortunately, there are plenty of other sticker options to up the fun factor!
Add Yours
The Add Yours sticker groups together a collection of stories on a theme (see Figure 8-5). You can add the Add Yours sticker to prompt your friends to add their own stories that are relevant to that theme. You can interact with an already existing sticker or start your own chain with a new Add Yours sticker. Common ideas include sharing vacation photos, highlighting your best friend (furry friends included), jumping on a popular trend, or starting a new challenge.
FIGURE 8-5: The Add Yours sticker encourages friends to share a story based on your prompt.
GIF stickers
A cultural norm with social media is the use of GIFs (short, animated pieces) to convey a thought, emotion, or response. Instagram is partnered with Giphy so that you can add GIFs to your stories, too.
Select the GIF sticker option from the sticker screen. You can choose from a list of popular and trending GIFs. You can also search for a keyword or topic related to the GIF you want to use (see Figure 8-6).
FIGURE 8-6: Use the search bar in the GIF sticker screen to find animations related to any topic of your choice.
You can add multiple GIFs to a story post to add the style and context you want. This is also a creative way to take a simple photo and make it animated and engaging.
Slider stickers
The Slider sticker is designed to boost engagement and interaction with your story. Viewers can physically drag the slider on the sticker to indicate their level of participation. You can find plenty of creative ways to utilize this sticker!
To add the sticker, select the Slider sticker (with the heart eyes emoji) from the sticker screen. Then select the emoji to include as the slider mechanism. Scroll left and right on the emojis to see all the available options. Then type in your question and tap Done when complete. You can drag and resize the sticker to place it anywhere on the image (see Figure 8-7).
FIGURE 8-7: In this example, dragging the smiley face indicates how much people love seahorses.
Emojis
You have the whole emoji keyboard to utilize and add as stickers to your stories. Tap the sticker icon as shown in Figure 8-1 and scroll up on the sticker screen to reveal trendy stickers, emojis, and more.
Avatars
In the beginning of 2022, Instagram introduced Avatars. Once you have created your Avatar, you can add it as a sticker on Stories. An avatar, which is an animated character that is created in your likeness, is added to a number of stickers as shown in Figure 8-8.
FIGURE 8-8: Choose one of your personalized Avatar stickers to add to your story.
Questions, polls, quizzes, chats, and more
Do you want to find out more about your followers? Or maybe share more about yourself? The variety of questions, polls, quizzes, and chat stickers enable you to do that and encourage participation from your followers.
Questions sticker
The Questions sticker allows you to pose a question to your audience and have them submit responses. Your question can be on any topic you choose! Responses will appear in the story insights for that post and are only visible to you.
Select the Questions sticker from the sticker screen, type in a question and post the sticker to the story. Your followers have the option to type a response in the sticker itself. You can see the responses by tapping the viewers in the lower-left corner of your own story to navigate to the post insights (see Figure 8-9).
FIGURE 8-9: Use the Question sticker to generate dialogue and participation with your followers. You’ll be able to see their responses to your question.
Poll and Quiz stickers
Both the Poll and Quiz stickers work much the same as the Questions sticker. You can create a question and provide answer options for your audience to choose from. The polls results appear after the viewer has selected a response.
For the Quiz sticker, type in the question and then add answers. It defaults to two, but you can add more options. Tap the option for the correct response to highlight it (see Figure 8-10).
FIGURE 8-10: The Quiz sticker allows you to test your followers. Add multiple options for responses and select the correct one before adding it to your story.
As with all stickers, pinch, drag, and move them where you want them in your story.
Chat sticker
The Chat sticker enables you to create a unique direct message thread exclusively for those who reply to the Chat sticker on your story.
When you add the sticker, followers can tap it to request to join the chat. When you approve them, they’re added to the direct message thread along with anyone else you approve into the chat. You can stop the chat thread at any time by turning it off, and no one will be able to continue chatting in that conversation.
These chats are great for making weekend plans or coordinating a meetup with a group of people.
Link sticker
You may have heard of the “swipe up” link for Instagram Stories that allowed professional accounts to send viewers to a website URL. Well, now that’s available for all users, regardless of the type of account or how many followers you have. You can add a Link to any story.
Select the Link sticker from the sticker options and then paste or type the URL into the field in the link screen. Then tap Done to add the sticker and place it anywhere on your story.
You can customize the link sticker text so that instead of defaulting to the website name in the sticker, you can say “Click here” or “Watch video.” Simply tap on the + Customize Sticker Text option and type whatever custom text you want. See Figure 8-11.
Captions sticker for accessibility
A newer addition to stories is the Captions sticker. This sticker generates a transcript of the audio in your story. It is meant to increase accessibility, but it is also a helpful tool for users who like to view stories with the sound off.
Add the Captions sticker to your story and let the transcript process work its magic! The transcription is usually very good, but if you find a misspelled word, you can make edits by tapping the word before you tap Done. You can also choose from a few fonts by tapping the options at the bottom right of the screen. See Figure 8-12 for an example.
FIGURE 8-11: Add a link to a story and label the link with custom text.
FIGURE 8-12: The Captions sticker auto-generates a transcription of the audio in your story.
If you’d like to turn on auto-generated captions for all the videos you watch throughout Instagram, follow these steps:
- From your Instagram profile page, tap the three lines at the top right.
- Tap Settings.
- Tap Account.
- Tap Captions.
- Toggle the Captions button to the right.
Countdown and Music stickers to intrigue your followers
One of the best ways to keep your followers in the know about what you have going on is to use the Countdown sticker. For example, If you’re hosting a party, going live on Instagram, leaving on vacation, or planning any other type of event, you can use the Countdown sticker to let people know when that event is going to happen. You can set a date and time for an upcoming event, and people can subscribe to the sticker to be notified when it expires.
The Music sticker may be one of the most sought-after stickers for most Instagram users. It’s widely available, but was not rolled out to all accounts. For those that have it, it enables you to add a music overlay to any Story post.
You can choose from Instagram’s music library (not your own) and add up to 15 seconds of music to an individual post. Select the Music sticker and navigate through the music options or search for a song or artist of your preference. Select the song by tapping it. Tap the number to the left of the slider to choose how long the music will play (between 5 and 15 seconds). Drag the slider to the clip of the song you want to use (see Figure 8-13).
Lyrics for the song appear on the screen. Slide through the Aa icons to choose the font option for the lyrics or choose one of the last options to display the song name or cover image instead of the lyrics.
FIGURE 8-13: The Music sticker allows you to add a music clip of 5 to 15 seconds onto a story post.
Picture on picture for the fun of it
Another way to make your stories fun is to add a photo on top of your original photo or video story, as shown in Figure 8-14. Tap the smiley face at the top of the screen once you take/upload a photo or video. Select the photo icon sticker (a circle with your latest photo inside it) from the sticker screen.
You then get to choose another photo from your camera roll. Select the photo and place it over your original story. Then you can drag the photo around the screen and pinch to change the size, or tap it to get options to change its shape.
FIGURE 8-14: Add a picture-on-picture effect to your stories by using the photo sticker.
Stickers for causes
Instagram launched several stickers that support different causes — for example, COVID-19 vaccination, Shop Creators, Support Ukraine, Pride, and more. When you use one of these stickers on your story, it becomes part of a shared story with others who have used the sticker. Some stickers, like the COVID-19 vaccination sticker, link to further information about the cause. Figure 8-15 shows examples of stickers for causes.
Deleting stickers that don’t work
It’s easy to add stickers, and it’s just as easy to remove them (before you post the story) if you don’t like them. After you’ve added the sticker to your story, tap and hold the sticker; a garbage can appears at the bottom of the story screen (see Figure 8-16). Simply drag the sticker to the garbage can to remove it.
FIGURE 8-15: Stickers for causes show your support for a cause and group your story with others that display that sticker.
FIGURE 8-16: Tap and hold any sticker in a story to drag it down to the trash can to remove it from your post.
Personalizing Stories with Doodles
Instagram stories have a variety of drawing tools that enable you to add freehand doodles and scribbles. To access the drawing tools, tap the three dots at the top of the story screen and then tap Draw (see Figure 8-17).
FIGURE 8-17: Tap the three dots at the top right of the screen to access the drawing tools.
Instagram offers a variety of pen and drawing tools along the top of the screen. Each pen creates a different effect, from a simple pen/pencil to a highlighter, an eraser, and more.
On the left side of the screen is a sizing tool. You can drag the dot up and down to make the drawing tool thicker or thinner. Color options are along the bottom of the screen. You can scroll left and right along the color option bar to access more color selections (see Figure 8-18).
FIGURE 8-18: Doodle tools offer different pen, thickness, and color options.
You can also get really creative and choose any color of the rainbow rather than just the listed color options. Tap and hold any color circle on the row of colors to see the whole spectrum of colors; then just drag your finger to find the perfect shade.
If you want to match a specific color, you can tap the eyedropper tool next to the color palette and then tap the item in your image that you want to match. That color becomes your pen color.
If you want to fill the screen with a certain color, choose the standard pen tool, pick the color of your choice, and then tap and hold the screen. The color you chose fills the entire screen, creating a blank canvas to work on.
When you’re done with any doodle, tap Done to save it to your story.
While you’re adding doodles, you may want to undo something you’ve drawn. Simply tap the Undo link to undo the last doodle you created. You can keep undoing all the way back to the first one you added. However, once you’ve tapped the check mark to apply the doodles, you can’t undo them.
Saying More with Text
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but sometimes you may want to personalize your stories with some text.
To access the Text option, tap the Aa icon in the top toolbar when creating your story or simply tap anywhere on the screen to open the text tool.
You can add multiple text boxes to your story and place them wherever you choose. Pinch a text box to change the size and rotate it as you please.
Changing your font option
The font option defaults to a basic font. You can change this easily to one of the other font options by scrolling through the options at the middle of the screen, as shown in the middle image in Figure 8-19.
You In addition to font choices, you can choose different colors for your fonts by tapping the multicolored circle at the top of the screen and choosing a color. To change the justification from left- to center- to right-justified, tap the alignment icon in the upper-left corner of the screen.
You can also add background colors or fill the text box with a color. If you see the “A**” icon, that lets you know that option is available. Tapping the “A**” icon fills the text box with the selected color, but you can change it by tapping a color palette of the options.
FIGURE 8-19: Instagram stories offer a variety of font options for you to personalize your posts.
Removing your text boxes
You can easily remove text boxes (before saving changes) if you decide you don’t want them. Simply tap and hold to reveal the trash can icon and drag the text box onto the trash can to remove it.