Every social media platform today seems to have a penchant for the Story feature – and why not! Stories make for a powerful marketing tool that can catapult you into popularity. And Instagram Stories are no different.
Launched in 2016, Instagram Stories is a feature that mimics Snapchat’s acclaimed and trending hallmark at the time.
But here’s the best part:
Over time, Instagram’s Story feature has surpassed Snapchat in popularity and is a huge driver of success for the social media app.
In fact, Business of Apps reported that Instagram reached 3 billion active users in the third quarter of 2025. Incredible, right?
If you are wondering how IG stories can help you build a strong following—trust us; visual storytelling matters. Read on to know why.
What Are Instagram Stories?
Instagram Stories is a feature that allows you to post texts, photos and videos that disappear within 24 hours of being posted. The maximum permissible length of a Story video is 60 seconds, whereas photos posted as stories can be seen for 7 seconds at once.
Since Stories disappear after 24 hours and don’t stay on your feed forever, they don’t have to be perfect. You can post updates, promos, and other related content without cluttering your feed.
Surveys by Meta indicate that 58% of people have shown more interest in brands or products after discovering their Stories on Instagram.
IG Stories give people a deeper look into your brand and make them trust you. From giving users a look behind the scenes to community polls and product teasers – Stories let you have one-on-one conversations with your audience.
The below Instagram story by Benefit cosmetics, feels like a direct conversation between the brand and its customers.
Clearly, Stories have a great potential to engage users and grow your follower count.
Dimensions to Use When Creating Instagram Stories
Before you start posting, you need to pay attention to the Instagram Stories size and dimension requirements, especially if you are designing them on your desktop or via a software program:
- Recommended Image Ratio: Even though all feed ratios are supported on Stories, 9:16 is the perfect ratio to cover the entire screen. For a detailed breakdown, explore these Instagram stories dimensions.
- Recommended Resolution: 1080×1920 – the minimum resolution is 600×1067. Remember: high-resolution images increase upload times.
- Maximum File Size: 30MB for images, 4GB for video.
- Maximum Video Duration: 60 seconds.
How to Post Instagram Stories (Step-by-Step Guide)
If you’re only just getting started on Instagram, take a look at our step-by-step guide on posting a Story to your feed:
Step 1: Swipe right on your Instagram feed and tap on the camera icon, or touch the ‘+’ button that appears on your profile picture.
Step 2: Tap the white circle at the bottom of the screen to click a picture or hold it to record videos. You can also swipe up to use media from your camera roll or phone history.
Step 3: Edit your photo or video using Instagram’s numerous existing editing options.
Step 4: Then, tap the “Your Story” button or “close friends” button to publish stories at last, depending on who you want to share your stories with! A colorful circle will appear around your profile picture, alerting followers to your newly posted Story.
You can also look at our Instagram marketing guide to understand how posting Stories can fit into your broader Instagram strategy.
How to View Instagram Stories Posted by Others
You can view a Story by tapping the profile you’re interested in within the Stories row at the top of your feed. Tap the right side of the screen to move to the next Story, or the left side to watch their previous story again.
Publicly shared stories can also show up in the Search & Explore tabs and reach more audiences, beyond just your followers. Furthermore, if someone adds a location, hashtag, or location-dependent sticker on their story, it may display on hashtag or location pages as well.
New stories (tailored according to your presence on the platform) are displayed first, as shown in the picture below. By scrolling left, you can view all of the stories published in the previous 24 hours by nearly all the accounts you follow.
You do not need to follow an account on Instagram in order to see their stories, as long as their account is not private. When you tap on somebody’s profile image, their story will appear in the full-screen view as usual.
When you watch someone’s story, Instagram automatically records your view which will then be shown to the creator/business in their Instagram Story Viewer list. For creators and businesses, this viewer list offers valuable insight into who is actively engaging with their content and how often.
How to Save or Download Instagram Stories
On Instagram, you can only save your own stories – the platform doesn’t allow users to save or download Stories posted by others for privacy reasons.
There are 4 ways to save or download your story on Instagram:
- Download Your Stories after posting
- Archive Stories in the Instagram app
- Save Instagram Stories as Highlights
How to Download Stories After Posting:
If you prefer saving only selected Stories, you can manually download them right after posting. Here are the steps:
Step 1: Open your profile and tap on your active Story.
Step 2: Tap the three-dot “More” option at the bottom right.
Step 3: Choose Save Photo or Save Video to download that specific Story.
How to Archive Stories in the Instagram app
Instagram has a built-in archive feature, where you can save your stories. Once you enable this option, all your Stories will be stored privately in your Archive after 24 hours.
How to turn on Story Archive:
Step 1: Open your Instagram profile and tap the menu (☰) in the top-right corner.
Step 2: Select Archive, then tap the three-dot menu at the top.
Step 3: Go to Settings and switch on Save Story to Archive.
Once you create this setting, every Story you post will be saved automatically.
How to view your archived Stories:
- Go to your profile and open the menu (☰).
- Tap Archive.
- The Stories Archive section will open, where all your stories will be organized by date.
How to Save Story from the Archived Section:
Step 1: Open the Stories Archive section, following the steps above
Step 2: Click on the story you want to save
Step 3: Click on the three-dot “More” option and then select Save Video.
How to Save Instagram Stories to Highlights
Instagram story highlight is another way to save your stories forever. It can be created from either your active Stories or archived Stories.
To create Instagram story highlights from active Stories, follow the steps below:
Step 1: Select the active Story
Step 2: Click on Highlights
Step 3: Choose a name for the highlight, and it’s done.
Step 4: Tap on Add, and your highlights stories is ready.
Instagram users can also create highlights first and then archive their stories.
How to Save or Download Instagram Stories of Other Creators
To safeguard people’s privacy, Instagram does not offer any in-built feature to save or download the story of other creators or businesses.
However, here are some ways that one can use to download or save the Stories of others:
Method 1: Using a Web Downloader (Works only for Public Profiles)
This video shows how to use a web downloader to save someone’s Instagram Story:
- Find the Story: Open Instagram and go to the public profile whose story you want to save.
- Copy the Link: Tap the three dots (•••) on their profile and select “Copy Profile URL,” or find the specific story, tap the three dots, and select “Copy Link”.
- Go to a Downloader: Search for an “Instagram Story Downloader” (e.g., StorySaver, InstaSave, Toolzu, or Social Cat ), and paste the copied link into the website’s search bar and click “Download” or “View”.
- Save to Device: Follow the prompts to save the photo or video to your phone’s gallery.
2. Using Screen Recorder (Works for Public and Private Accounts)
- Open Story: Go to the story you want to save on Instagram.
- Start Recording/Screenshot:
- Screen Record: Swipe down from the top of your screen to open your phone’s control center and tap the screen record button (you may need to add it first).
- Screenshot: Press the power and volume down buttons simultaneously (or power and home button on older iPhones).
- Finish & Trim: Let the story play, then stop the recording or take the screenshot. Trim the video or photo as needed from your phone’s gallery.
Important Note: Always respect creator rights and privacy. Download Stories only for personal reference, inspiration, or with the creator’s permission.
What More Can You Do With Stories?
Posting a photo or video is a good way to kick things off, but it’s the bare minimum you can do.
Here are some features you can use to add some pizzazz to your Story:
- Type: Text-based posts on a colored background.
- Live: Real-time videos that you can post on your stories afterward.
- Boomerang: A 1-second looping video.
- Focus: Portraits that blur out the background and keep your subject’s face in focus.
- Superzoom: A zoom feature with numerous effects.
- Rewind: A feature that plays your video back in reverse.
- Hands-Free: Allows you to record a video without having to hold on to the record button.
Beyond that, you can make your IG Stories stand out with the following elements:
If you have been using Instagram for even a couple of months, you know how using the best Instagram hashtags can improve your business outreach.
Hashtags, when used properly, can double, triple, or even quadruple the number of visitors on your page. And they perform the same task when added to your Stories!
While you can add up to 10 hashtags on an Instagram Story, we recommend using just 3–5 hashtags for optimal reach. You can either use the text tool to add them or simply put a hashtag using Instagram story stickers.
Check out how Walmart is using hashtags to attract more audiences.
Location
Just like hashtags, location tags can lead a potential customer to your page – especially if your primary target audience is local.
And adding your location on Instagram Stories could put you on the explore page and bring more eyes to your brand – even beyond your follower list.
Select a “Location” sticker of your city, street, or neighbourhood (if you are targeting a local audience). You can also tag a larger region to reach a wider audience. Once you have added the Instagram story sticker, you can adjust its size and position and even change its color to personalize it.
GIFs
GIFs are charming little moving images or stickers that can freshen up even the blandest Story.
To add a GIF to your Stories, follow these steps:
- Go to Your Story and tap on the square smiley-face sticker.
- You can choose from the trending GIFs on the screen or search for something specific.
- Add your selected GIF and pinch to resize or drag to move.
- Finally, tap the “Your Story” icon for publishing.
Polls
Your followers love nothing more than to share their opinions. And including Polls in your IG stories allows them to do just that.
Doritos makes clever use of the Poll feature to gauge which merch its users like best.
Here’s how you add the Polls feature to Instagram Stories:
- Search for the stickers icon in your screen’s top-right corner.
- Tap the Polls icon.
- Feed your questions and responses (“Yes” and “No” will be there by default).
- You can customize the text and add emojis. Character limits don’t apply to questions, but responses must be under 22 characters.
- Tap ‘Your Story’ once you’re done!
After sharing the poll with your audience, you can swipe up to check the results.
Highlights
Do you want to make your poll last beyond 24 hours? Perhaps you’d like to save previously posted Stories for new followers to explore your products?
Well, you can add them as Instagram Highlights!
Let’s see how you can create Instagram Highlights for your page:
- First, go to your profile page.
- Select the ‘+’ sign placed just below your bio section.
- Choose the Stories you want to include in your Highlight and tap ‘Next’.
- Write a short title – it can only be up to 16 characters.
- You can pick one of the Stories as a cover for your Highlight or create your own to give it a personal touch.
Live Videos
Going live is no doubt a stellar method of engaging with your followers!
Loyal users will likely be interested in interacting with you in real-time, giving you an opportunity to build an authentic connection with them.
And the Instagram Live feature enables you to stream live to your audience via Stories.
However, the video will disappear once your broadcast has ended. If you want your audience to see the live video even after the end of your broadcast, just tap on the “Share” button at the bottom of your screen.
By doing so, the replay of your live broadcast will be added to your Story for 24 hours.
What are Instagram Story Templates and Where to Find Them?
The Instagram Stories template is a pre-prepared design for an Instagram Story (in the 9:16, vertical format) incorporating text, images, and even GIF animations that you can customize according to your business.
Using these templates for content creation can help you save a lot of time and effort.
Here are some of the top fan-favorite resources for finding the finest Instagram Stories templates.
Snappa
Snappa is an internet-based graphic design tool that has stunning templates for your blogs, advertisements, social networking, and other uses. They provide designs for almost every social media site, but their Instagram Story layouts are especially lovely.
Here’s a sneak peek:
You can choose from their wide library of stock photographs, and then edit the template to meet your requirements.
Canva
Canva is an extremely well-known design software company. And they provide Instagram Story templates with multiple themes such as inspirational quotes, auctions, minimalism, animals, travel, holidays, etc.
Although some of their templates are paid, there are still plenty of free templates for you to choose from and design stories, as shown below.
Adobe Spark Post App
Adobe Spark includes a comprehensive set of design tools. This app is easy to use and can be accessed directly from your smartphone. And it is as potent as any other design software.
Here are a few of their sample templates:
They have templates from a range of themes, including collages, lifestyle, school, seasonal, travel, business, craft, cuisine, etc.
Made
Made’s toolkit for creating Stories, a new Instagrammer favorite, is jam-packed with simple and contemporary themes crafted with the interests of content producers.
Made, unlike other pre-made template applications, has adjustable page backgrounds, 40 distinct colors, an 80+ template suite, and 16 bespoke font styles and multiple interactive elements to let you build exact on-brand templates in a matter of seconds.
The app also provides periodic thematic templates, such as the famous Film Pack, Travel Collection, and the most recent Pride Month collection.
Unfold
Some popular smartphone apps, such as Unfold, allow users to add multiple borders and text to their images and have begun to appear all over Instagram Stories.
With its library of clean and contemporary templates, Unfold is currently one of the most prominent Instagram Story template applications!
Instagram Stories with Polaroid, minimalist borders, and filmstrips may be recognizable from the posts of your favorite Instagrammers:
Unfold also allows you to preview your Story using the ‘Story mode,’ allowing you to check exactly how your Stories will appear after you press ‘post.’
Instagram itself has a wonderful reservoir of spectacular templates. Simply search the hashtags #instagramtemplate, #storytemplate, #instagramstorytemplates or #instagramstorytemplate, on Instagram.
You’ll find tons of templates in the results and see how they appear when used.
You can download these templates and use a third-party tool to make the necessary edits.
Let us now understand how brands can use Instagram Stories for better engagement.
10 Ways to Use Instagram Stories for Your Brand
With 50% of business accounts using Stories to enhance their engagement ratio, quality content is indispensable if you want to be heard!
But guess what? With the right content strategy for Instagram Stories, you can help your account gain some traction. You can also check out these Instagram story ideas to inspire your next posts.
Here are 10 ways to use the feature to its full potential:
1. Create a Visual Identity
Your content won’t make as big a splash if you don’t add any personality behind it. Hence, your brand needs to create a visual identity that your audience can latch onto.
This is because Instagram is a visual platform, and your entire online persona could crumble without a theme! Here’s how you develop a visual identity via Stories:
- Use consistent brand colors on your Stories and stick to a cohesive theme for your content (hilarious, analytical, informational, etc.).
- Using similar Instagram stickers, polls, and GIFs also builds trust in your target audience.
2. Show Behind-the-Scenes Footage
Believe it or not, recording a 10-second BTS video for your Instagram Stories can actually make a difference in your engagement!
A sneak peek behind company operations will get your followers invested in your brand.
It gives them a deeper understanding of who you are and what you do.
Shoot behind-the-scenes footage of you or your team working hard to give your customers the best experience possible. Here’s Wilton Cakes posting a video of one of their bakers in action.
Building a personal connection with your content consumers can take your brand to another level! Its a simple way to have more engaged followers that will support your brand for years to come.
Share some anecdotes that help establish your company – how you built the brand, what struggles you faced, what values you follow, etc.
This won’t just help you gain more organic followers – it’ll prove to your existing audience that you are relatable.
4. Deliver Special Offers
Yes, you are a brand, and you deliver products to your audience. So, why not give them a bonus through Instagram Stories!
You can use the tricks of persuasion, attraction, scarcity (e.g., the seats to the webinar are limited), urgency (e.g., offer ends within 24 hours), etc., to make your special offer more appealing.
For example, you can see how Foundr is offering free exclusive training to the people and asking them to swipe up for the same.
But it’s not always about giving your product for free. It can also offer a service for a discounted price or a free webinar access to your audience.
5. Drive Traffic to Your Blog Post or Website
You can also use Stories to show snippets of a new blog post that’s been published on your website. Give limited details to your viewers as to what the content entails to create buzz around your site.
Directing followers to your site will drive organic traffic, especially when they are looking to consume more of your content.
If you’ve got an engaging Twitter account, you can post a weekly round-up of the best ones on your Stories. You can also share updates when you’ve posted new content on other platforms, like a video on YouTube.
6. Create a Helpful Tutorial
Your target audience isn’t going to stick around for very long if they don’t find value in your content. And as it turns out, posting tutorials and educational Stories is one way to keep them from unfollowing you.
What’s more, how-to guides and tutorials will prove to be a core component of your marketing strategy if they feature your product.
As long as it’s presented in a fun, creative way, your customers will love to see Instagram Stories that highlight the benefits and uses of choosing your brand.
7. Make Use of Quizzes and Polls
Running polls and quizzes helps you understand your customers’ psychology, which tells you how they will formulate their future decisions.
You can create fun polls, quizzes, guessing games, and much more to keep your audience engaged while also trying to understand them. If you want to keep things consistent and quick, use story templates to create some fun polls.
For example, Warner Bros. used the ‘Ask Me a Question’ feature to interact with their followers.
8. Tap Into the Power of Ads
Instagram Stories are one of the most effective formats for running high-impact ads that boost brand awareness, and drive clicks. This guide on creating impactful Instagram ads breaks down everything you need to know about story ads.
However, to prevent your followers from swiping away, make sure that your message is brief and to the point.
While you can choose a still image that focuses on your product’s creative features, posting videos is undoubtedly the way to go. Make your video ads as eye-catching as possible in the first 5 seconds!
Bonus Tip: There’s a high chance that new followers will visit your Instagram account first and your website later. As a result, your Insta Stories ad should also match your overall brand aesthetic and theme.
9. Showcase Positive Reviews
You can talk about your brand all you want, but when you post positive feedback from your existing customers, it has a completely different impact.
Here are some ways you could demonstrate positive reviews via Stories:
- Encourage followers to tag you in their Instagram Stories if they have good things to say about your product or service.
- Re-share your interesting Stories on your own page to help spread the word.
- Display testimonials about your brand from your website or feature screenshots of direct messages (DMs) as a Highlight. (But be sure to ask customers for permission before posting.)
10. Host an Instagram Takeover
An Instagram takeover is when a special guest – an influencer, employee, or even a customer! – gains control over your account and content for a day.
The strategy involves sharing content via posts and live videos. But Instagram Stories have emerged as the best way to host takeovers on the platform, largely because the posts disappear after 24 hours.
Alternatively, featuring employees in your Story takeover can also help develop your brand identity.
When there are so many content ideas and a rush to be consistent in your posting on multiple client accounts, one can get pretty overloaded. Is there any shortcut out of this?
SocialPilot’s Instagram scheduler is the perfect solution to the situation.
The tool has excellent scheduling capabilities. You can schedule any number of stories, reels, and posts beforehand and get them published on time without a single hitch!
What is The Best Time to Post Instagram Stories
When it comes to Instagram Stories, timing is just as important as consistency.
But unfortunately, there’s no formula for discovering the best time to post Instagram stories.
This is because people tend to view Instagram Stories throughout the day.
So, the trick is to ignore other people and focus on when your audience is online the most.
For an accurate reflection of your audience’s peak online time, simply look at your Instagram stories analytics on Insights. You can rely on our guide on the best time to post on Instagram for further in-depth insights.
How to Analyze the Performance of Your Instagram Stories
What’s the point of posting Stories if you don’t measure how your followers are reacting to it?
That’s why it’s recommended to analyze viewership by evaluating the key metrics of Instagram Stories. Here are some Instagram story analytics that you must track:
- Average completion rates, or the number of people who watch the entire Story.
- Posting frequency and timing
- Vanity metrics like Instagram story views, impressions, reach, and taps
- Average Story length
- Story frame exit rates
Study how your follower count compares to your reach rate to understand what truly drives traffic to your page. Check your Story performance month by month and see how often brands in your industry post.
Time to Boost Your Brand with the Best IG Stories!
In this comprehensive guide, we have covered everything you would need to create the best visual stories that benefit your brand. Make sure to pick the right hashtags for your niche, use polls and quizzes, and focus on making content that’s interactive and offers value.
Create an Instagram content strategy that incorporates stories to maximize your reach. You can also use tools like SocialPilot to automate your posting schedule and get valuable performance data, so you’re always on top of your branding game.
Go ahead – you’re all set to grow your business with Instagram Stories!
