Becoming an Instagram Stories Design Jedi in 2022: Mission Possible

May 26, 2022 • 15 min read

Author: Victoriia Cristoff

Today’s lesson is devoted to the most potent instrument for promoting your brand in the Instagram world. I beg you have already guessed that it is Insta Stories. I propose you will master the power of Stories, learn how to do Stories on Instagram, and become a real Jedi!

Why Insta Stories Rule the 2022 Digital World

A long time ago (August 2016, to be precise), in the app well-known to almost everyone nowadays, Instagram Stories was launched. Of course, at first, they were used by a small number of Instagram users. However, over the last couple of years they have really developed, gradually being used by various brands and businesses, and becoming a much more important element of branding and promotion.

According to Truelist statistics from January 2022, the posts started to get a higher reach rate compared to Stories. However, you need to understand that both Stories and posts will engage followers differently, and must be appreciated separately by marketers. Stories have more chances to hook your viewers and keep your audience engaged, while posts are good for quick scrolling, sharing, and saving.

Infographic Reach rate of Instagram stories and posts.

More interesting statistics can be found here.

So what do we have today? Insta Stories have huge power. They frequently appear on our screens as we open them every now and then. The algorithms of Instagram change at the speed of light, moving the focus of users as well as SMM priorities. While the usual publications (image and video) can get lost among the thousands of others in the feed of your followers and in general, you can do nothing about this, Stories are something that you can control. Accordingly, you can raise the reach by converting them into sales and boosting your account on Instagram.

Collage with Instagram stories in pastel colors.

The Stories gave a new direction in design because making beautiful and eye-catching visuals is a must-have for bloggers who want to become popular. There are many amazing templates for Stories and posts that exist on marketplaces. MasterBundles also has some cool templates to offer for those who want their Stories to be beautiful. And if you make the templates by yourself, you are welcome to share and sell them through our Sell Your Deal form 🙂

Thus, in 2022, Stories now rule the digital world. This is why it is important to understand the popular techniques and learn how to use the tools that are constantly changing by the developers to make your Stories work for you.

Why Do Some Insta Stories Work and Others Don’t?

Nowadays, we can observe different changes in the world and the generation of millennials and zoomers has seen almost everything. Thus it is very hard for these people to be surprised and amazed by anything (what to say about generation alpha!).

The stories where there is no attempt of connection with the audience will never work. As well as those, where you talk about nothing or don’t talk at all and just go with playing music. These do not bring any rational purpose. Thus, you must think clearly about the things to put in your story.

Your Stories need to evoke some feelings – happiness, sadness, delight, sympathy, etc. Feelings almost always bring reactions and answers. Here we can also appeal to the topics that make us remember the “good old days” and evoke pleasant feelings of nostalgia. People like to evoke pleasant memories, so from such stories, you can also wait for reactions that are very good for your account.

However, there are some things that will definitely help your Stories boost.

Show your competence

Instagram stories with intriguing texts.

Show your competence in the sphere you work in and give the followers free useful information. For example, mini-trainings, step-by-step tutorials, and useful tips collections always work great. They are frequently saved, reviewed, shared, and tapped – and this is exactly what Instagram’s new algorithms adore. The network will promote you among other users as one of the more interesting blogs.

I propose you try some interesting techniques to vary your Stories.

Three stories with different text and same background.

Tap & Read Training. Prepare templates with professional advice or interesting information according to the topic of your blog. When posting them, make a special place to tap that will lead the reader to the next story. This adds interactivity to the training. And you remember that Instagram likes interactivity? 😉
BTS (Behind The Scenes) stories. They will especially work for businesses, brands, shops, and so on. For example, let’s say you started making cool printed t-shirts. Show in your Stories the process of sewing tees, and how you make a print application or make the particular design itself.

Stories with backstages photos and texts.

Use ‘Hot’ Topics

Hot topics mean something that is notorious among many people. In such a way you will draw additional attention to your blog. For example, recently Eurovision ended and there were many discussions around this contest. Many people shared their emotions, feelings, and predictions of who may win in their Stories. They made polls to find out the opinion of the audience, used the music of the contestants in videos making art, and so on.

Additionally, Instagram frequently makes special stickers on hype topics. And sure they are not only for decoration but for boosting your Stories among your followers. The Stories with stickers automatically get first place in the feed of your friends.

There were stickers for ‘stay home’ when all the world fought the pandemic, and these days special ‘Ukrainian’ stickers are popular. They depict support and help many people from Ukraine to draw attention to what is happening in their country.

Story with blindfolded woman with Ukrainian symbols.

There are many cute Instagram stickers available. But, don’t try to use those stickers with every story to just raise the views – that looks clumsy. Put them only on the Stories that touch the hot themes.

Thus, to be noticed and remembered you need to be as active as possible. But it doesn’t mean to post over 20 stories per day talking about nothing. Rely on quality, not quantity.

How to Make Stories more Engaging

Mini training and interactions through the polls, in addition to regular posting of Stories, will not only increase reach but also enrich the number of conversations in your DM with your potential clients. And if you want your stories to boost even more, there are a few tips that will help you do this.

Show Your Face

If you are a blogger, you need to be seen by your followers because the audience should know who you are. Don’t forget to show your dear kids or a cute cat and how you spend time together, or your traditional Saturday baseball play with friends.

As well, if you are promoting a brand, today it is also necessary for it to have a ‘face’ – it may be you, your partner, or someone else connected to your business. Just show the face of your brand, share your personal stories sometimes, give a few inside tips, and make connections with your followers. It is essential to talk with your viewers, smile at them, be kind and natural, and not wear masks. Show them the real you, and be sincere. Thepeople will love your personality and look forward to your Stories.

I understand that not everyone feels easy in front of the camera. But if you decide to be a successful blogger, it is the main thing you need to work on. Put your insecurities aside. No one will bite you if you say something wrong – it is your blog and your opinion. Your face is beautiful, your gestures are unique, and you have your own personal style in clothing. So what are you afraid of?

But! Always make subtitles to the Stories with the talking head because people tend to mute their phones when watching Stories (for example, in the office or university). You don’t want the precious information to be missed by your audience, do you?

Get Visible

Make more interesting stories, talk more, and share your thoughts and knowledge. Social media (especially Instagram) is becoming a very noisy place. Thus, to stand out, you need to create original and impressive content. Surprise your followers, and make them want to open your Stories once they get into Instagram. They should want to watch your Stories during the day. Only in such a way is it possible to really grow your business.

Communicate

In 2022, interaction with the audience through Stories is EVERYTHING. In order to make influential Stories, you need to know your audience very well and clearly define the topics that will be interesting both for them to hear and for you to talk about.

Here is some crucial advice to make your audience more friendly, active, and live.

The easiest way to get closer to your audience is to use various polls, quizzes, and question boxes to make creative Instagram Stories. If you are a blogger, you need to be closer to your audience to get more feedback and increase conversions to attract more new people to your blog. And if you promote a business on Instagram, you also need to have friendly relations with your audience simply because you need to earn the trust of your potential customers and again, attract new ones.

Instagram stories with questions.

Don’t you agree that it will be easier to place an order from the person or shop that communicates with you every day, shows the working process, and shares the company’s news in Stories, rather than from the account that posts only plain shots of their products and nothing more?

Ask

Ask your audience what they want to read/hear from you. Which steps of your business do they want you to show in Stories? You can make a poll right in your Stories to find out what they want. There are many different types of polls that will help you to find the right things to put on your Instagram story.

Two instagram stories with poll and quiz.

A tip: try to end your training or useful content with a poll that asks: ‘Was it useful for you?’ or ‘What would you like to know about the next day/week?’. In addition to extra interaction with your followers, those answers usually are a great source of ideas for your next stories and posts.

Story with grey background and one form for asking.

And don’t forget to answer everyone who reacts to your stories and writes down the polls. Start building relationships with your followers.

Don’t Underestimate Reels

Reels are a comparatively new feature, and many still ignore them, which is a complete crime. They give you reach and visibility. All of these can be converted into overall views, likes, comments, and new followers – huge activity on your account. That is very good for your business. This especially works if you make a video on a popular topic. In addition, people can use music from your Reels to make their own videos and share them with their audience. So appreciate this amazing tool and use it actively.

Stories with smiling girls.

You can make Reels from your tips and training, just add your talking head, and some music, and don’t forget to add captions for those who watch videos on silent mode. By the way, Reels can add captions for you (click the square sticker icon at the top, then captions).
Add a title and a short description to your Reels, and a couple of working hashtags (7-10 is quite enough). Try different hashtags with your Reels, and test them out. Some will bring more views and some less.
Add a ‘call to action’. This is a special phrase that should make a viewer do something after watching your Reels. ‘Leave a comment if you agree…’ or something else will perfectly match the purpose. People usually like to answer such ‘calls’.

Stories with girls and asking to meet text.

Look for the inspiration in Trending Reels. You just need to click on the magnifying glass icon at the bottom of your page. There you will scroll down and see many Reels. You can save the audio directly and use it later in your videos. However, you need to find that trending audio. There are 2 markers of such audio: all of the videos that use such audio have great reach; it’s been used less than 100k times which shows that the audio is fairly new. The Reels with popular audio also bring you extra views.
Regularity means a lot in this case, too. Try to start by creating 1-2 short videos per week and then you will work to make more. Don’t forget to share your Reels in stories!

Stories with photos of interior work spaces.

10+ Best Instagram Stories Templates from MasterBundles

There are many options on how to decorate Instagram Stories to make them attractive. However, if you sometimes have no time or inspiration to create the templates for your stories, this is when such bundles come to aid.

10 Minimal Photography Instagram Story Templates

Minimalism is always appreciated. Use these amazing templates if you have a minimalistic blog.

10 Travel Photography Instagram Story Templates

Pastel backgrounds with simple fonts and bright details will definitely draw the attention of your followers and show your good taste.

10 Photography Instagram Story Templates

This bundle of Instagram story design contains 10 adorable naturalistic designs for your Stories and is fully editable, too.

100 Instagram Stories Canva Templates

Inside the pack you can find great templates for business accounts as well as for personal blogs.

20 Abstract Boho Instagram Story Backgrounds

This very aesthetic bundle consists of 20 Insta Stories backgrounds in Boho style that can be used for your future Stories

Aesthetic Happy Birthday Instagram Story Template

These templates look very chic and aesthetic. A perfect option for the bloggers who tend to congratulate friends in Stories and improve Instagram Stories view.

10 Dog Instagram Story Templates

They are super cute and stylish looking, don’t you agree?

12 Animated Painted Masks [Gold Foil Instagram Stories]

Here are 12 animated masks that you can add to your stories to make them more interactive.

5 Real Estate Instagram Story Templates

This is a very winning option for a real estate agent who wants to boost the stories but is always busy driving around the city and meeting clients.

5 Doctor Instagram Story Templates

Similar to the previous case, this bundle in perfect Instagram Stories dimensions will help an always busy doctor make the stories attractive and beautiful.

10 Happy Birthday Instagram Story Templates

Chic templates with unusual picture holders that will definitely draw the attention to your Stories for instagram.

Strategy and Consistency are Important

Besides knowing how Instagram organizes story views, you need to think out the content strategy. To be more successful and visible on Instagram you can’t ignore such things as strategy and consistency. And if consistency is something we can understand clearly: you need to be present in stories every single day and make, let’s say, 5-10 stories per day. Some experts say that you need to make no less than 3 stories in a day. It’s because it makes that circle with your avatar get closer to the beginning of the feed of your followers. Thus, speaking especially about business accounts, because of the IG algorithms, if you make fewer than 3, there is no reason to be present in stories at all – you will be invisible. Yep, nobody said it will be easy.

Content Pillars Strategy

Making catchy and cool Instagram Stories is a hard job. However, there are some strategies that can help you deal with it. And this is where Content Pillars come into play.

Let’s start with an example first. This is Sofia. She makes scented candles and is interested in cinematography, likes to visit galleries of Modern Art, travels around the world, and loves her cat named Chevy.

Collage with instagram feed and instagram bio.

She decided that she wants to sell her candles through Instagram, but she faced the problem: what should her posts be about? Sofia doesn’t know what she should post about and tell her followers in her stories. But there is a way to help her with this tough question. The girl needs to define her 3-to-5 content pillars.

1st Pillar – the Brand

Sofia needs to build a strong brand of scented candles if she decides that she wants to develop in this sphere. And the main topic of her blog will be scented candles. Inside this topic, Sofia can define many ‘micro pillars’ such as:

the process of making candles
purchasing materials
materials’ descriptions (that they are safe and premium)
the scents she uses for the candles
the packing she puts over every candle
the buyers’ reviews
her plans about new collections and so on

Collage with handmade candles in instagram stories.

However, if she only shares aesthetic Instagram Stories with images of candles on her blog, it will become boring and she will run out of ideas. To avoid this, she needs to look around and find out more subtopics for the content. At the same time, she must not forget about her personality.

2nd and 3rd Pillars – Areas of Expertise

Unpacking Sofia’s personality, we come to the next two pillars:

modern art
cinematography

Photos from painting galleries in instagram stories.

Within the first one, she can tell her audience about the exhibitions she visits, her favorite artists and genres, and some interesting facts about paintings and sculpture. The second pillar may be divided into movie reviews and what-to-watch lists.

4th and 5th Pillars

They are still interesting topics for Sofia’s followers because she has already started telling more about herself and uncovering her artistic personality. Thus telling about her traveling experiences and the life of her cat will also be must-have topics for Sofias’s Stories.

Collage with photos of resting girl and cute kitty.

In the end, she has a great mix of strategies:

educational (as she knows everything about candles and how to make them)
entertaining (she visits galleries, raising a cat, as well as travels a lot)
inspirational (shares her favorite movie quotes and artistic works)
selling (has her own brand and sells amazing candles)

Thus, I advise you to write down the list of your own interests and try to define 3-5 key topics you can talk about to your followers. Then think about the micro-themes you can identify within the main topics. Remember that you should cover all the 4 mini-strategies listed above.

How to Deal with Activity in Stories without being Overwhelmed

Well, when you are done with the content plan and are inspired to make Stories and become a noticed blogger, there is still some danger that hides behind the corner of the popularity wall. That dangerous monster is called ‘burnout’. This thing may happen even with the most successful Instagrammers.

Lucky for you, there are some rules that can help you to avoid meeting with this dangerous creature that can ruin all your inspiration and desire to develop.

Take a day off once a week. If you feel that you are running out of ideas and the desire to make Stories, take a pause to give yourself some rest. Nothing horrible will happen if you don’t appear in Stories for one day.
Meet friends and spend time offline too. Firstly, this will be nice story material. And secondly, you will get some air to your brain and soul being in nature, or hanging out in a bar/cafe.
Do not try to answer all the direct messages at once, as well as try to scroll to the end of your feed. This can be very stressful if you overcommunicate. If you have a business and need to answer many DM messages from the customers every day, hire an assistant to help you with this task.
Don’t try to make everything by yourself. Creating content can be a stressful task too. Employ a photographer and copywriter if you need to create a lot of high-quality content for your business account.

Useful Resources and Inspiration

Practice makes perfect. And to be more experienced and inspired it is necessary to watch various useful videos, read tutorials and guides, and learn new information.

Courses

Here I have collected some relevant online courses that can help you to study more about the power of Stories.

Videos

There are also many free useful tips that may be found on YouTube!

Experts

This is a list of IG experts, influencers, creators, and people who can help you on your way of boosting your Instagram stories.

Jade Beason is a content creator who specializes in helping fellow creators and entrepreneurs increase their online presence, multiply their income streams, and create profitable online businesses. She has a 1st class honors degree in Marketing and spent 8 years working with major international brands in various marketing roles before pursuing YouTube.
Adam Erhart is a marketing strategist, entrepreneur, and content creator who loves sharing what he has learned after nearly a decade of running multiple successful online businesses.
Hayls World. Her channel is an awesome source to check out some of the latest Tech Tips, Tricks, Hacks, Hidden Features, Gadgets, Reviews, How-To’s, Demos, Apps, and more.
Justin Brown – Primal Video. Justin and Mike are creators that got video editing tutorials, gear reviews, and a heap of video production tips & tricks to level up the quality of your content.
Modern Millie is an online educator and YouTuber teaching aspiring influencers the latest strategies and trends on Instagram, YouTube, and any social media platform to help YOU grow your brand.

Congrats! You have finished the quick course of Stories Jedi and are ready to conquer the Instagram world. Creativity first, creativity last, creativity always. Just remember this simple rule, don’t be afraid to share your insights and feelings, and win.

P.S. Share your secrets of winning stories in the comments below this article. May the force be with you!

Some Awesome Video About Instagram Stories

7 Creative Instagram Story Ideas | using the IG app only

In this video, I’m showing you 7 Creative Instagram Story Ideas. These are simple & easy to follow step by step tutorials on how to create aesthetically pleasing stories, using the instagram app only.

FAQ

What is the optimal size of Instagram Stories?

To look attractive, your content for stories should have the size of 1080px by 1920px (or a 9:16 aspect ratio).

Are there any apps that can help me with making stories?

Sure! You can find many apps for creating beautiful stories on the web as well as using ready made templates. The best ones according to the experience of the author are Unfold, Clay, and Canva.

How can I increase the views of my stories?

First of all, post them regularly, answer DM messages ASAP, add various interactive details (stickers, polls, questions), and make interesting and useful content.

Article Sources

This article is inspired by and relies on the following references: