Spending more time on tasks does not necessarily mean that you will achieve more. This rule also applies to social media. We selected some tried-and-true Instagram stories hacks to help you work smarter not harder. Are you ready to boost your social media? Then let’s go. Our tips and tricks are organized into categories for your convenience.
If you own a business, you’ve probably received questions like “What time do you open?” or “When will this be back in stock?” in your DMs. Providing timely responses is very important, but it can become overwhelming if you work alone. Fortunately, there is a quick way to respond to FAQs!
To use a saved reply, type the shortcut you created earlier, the blue button will appear in the message box. When you hit the button, the reply message will be automatically inserted.
Save time by planning out all of your Instagram content ahead of time. With the Later feature, you can easily schedule one week’s worth of content all at once including feed posts, carousels, and stories. And the most significant time saver? You don’t even need to be connected to the internet to publish your feed posts.
Later’s Auto Publish feature allows you to automatically publish your posts to Instagram at a predetermined time, so you’ll never have to be online after work hours again. Note, that this feature is only available on Business profiles and for Instagram feed posts.
With over 500 million users seeing Instagram Stories daily, they’re a great and engaging way to interact with your audience.
You may add multiple images to your stories using this easy Instagram trick. Tap the picture circle in the Instagram Stories stickers tray and select a picture from your camera roll. The image’s dimensions can be changed, and you can position it wherever you like in your story frame. Additionally, you can alter the image frame style by tapping the frame.
You can change the background colour of a feed post when you re-share it on your story. Choose a colour from the colour tray and tap the screen for 1-3 seconds.
If you use the marker or neon brush, the screen will have a solid colour fill, and if you use the chisel-tip brush, the screen will have a translucent colour fill.
If you upload a photo or video from your camera roll and proceed as described above, the entire screen will fill with colour, creating a colour layer on top of your photo or video. Then, using an eraser tool, you can create a “scratch card” effect to reveal a portion of your image.
If you want to add an image to your Instagram Stories background, select the post you want to share to your Instagram Story and select “Add post to your story”. Then tap the sticker tray and select the Instagram image sticker. Choose the image you want to use as your story background. Move the feed post to one side of your Instagram Story screen and expand the added photo using two fingers in a pinch motion. While doing so, tap and hold the original feed post using your thumb. This brings it to the top of the screen. Positioning the feed post on the right-hand side of the screen will increase the likelihood of taps, as this is where people typically tap when browsing stories.
To use this fun feature swipe up on Instagram Stories and choose a live photo from your camera roll. For a few seconds, press firmly on the screen until you see the loading circle appear briefly. That’s it. You’ve now created a dynamic Boomerang from your live photo!
What about a “rainbow” effect on the text of your story? Type the words, then select the colour picker tool and highlight your text by pressing “Select All.” While your text is highlighted, press and hold one finger down on the colour palette tool at the bottom of your screen to display the full colour spectrum. As you drag your finger across the colour spectrum, you’ll notice your text begin to change colour, letter by letter! You can change the colour by moving your finger faster or slower, or by changing the direction for a completely different effect.
Editing photos to have a consistent look can take time, especially if you’re new to editing software like Photoshop. Fortunately, there are numerous timesaving and photo-editing pre-sets available! Pre-sets are one-click photo editing tools that can significantly speed up your workflow and provide a professional look to your Instagram photos. Some of the best are VSCO, Tezza, and the Lightroom CC app. You can use mobile pre-sets in the free Lightroom app to quickly edit your images on the go.
Adding hashtags to your Instagram posts is one of the best ways to increase engagement, but they can disrupt a clean and tidy aesthetic. Instead, use up to 30 hashtags in your comments to keep your captions on point!
Posts with hashtags get 12.6% more engagement, so you must pay due attention do choose the right ones. With Later’s Saved Captions feature, you can create multiple hashtag lists based on your frequently used hashtag categories, all from your Later account.
Knowing when to post on Instagram is a huge growth hack because you’ll always be sharing content at times when it will receive the most engagement. But how do you know when it’s best to post? Using Later’s Best Time to Post feature is the simplest and most efficient way to accomplish this. Later’s Best Time to Post feature calculates your top seven posting times based on your top performing posts from the previous month.