According to Instagram, 60 percent of users learn about new products on the platform, and one-third of the most viewed Instagram stories come from businesses. While posting to your page regularly is a must, taking advantage of stories on a consistent basis can help your business stand out and reach a wider audience. If you want to give your Instagram story strategy some extra attention, read on for details on these five tools that can help take your stories to the next level.
1. Easil
If you’ve ever wanted to add more visual interest to your Instagram stories but aren’t sure where to start, Easil is a great tool. The desktop tool offers pre-designed templates to help you generate ideas of what exactly to post and how your stories should be formatted. All you have to do is upload the images you want to feature and add text and save your finished graphic to your camera roll for posting whenever you’re ready. Examples of Easil templates include top tip templates for sharing industry tips, behind-the-scenes templates, new product or service templates and Instagram Live announcement templates. These templates will ultimately save you time trying to make your stories look good on your own and will help you plan and brainstorm new ideas for future content.
2. CutStory
If you’ve ever shot some video using your camera app and tried to upload it to Instagram later, you know it can be frustrating trying to get the right parts of the video to upload to the app. That’s where CutStory comes in. The app snips your video into 15 second bits that you can upload, so if you have a video that’s 30 seconds long, it will cut it into two videos that transition perfectly in a story without any choppiness.
3. Unfold
If you want to dabble in Instagram story templates but prefer a mobile app over a desktop site, Unfold is a popular option. Similar to Easil, it offers a variety of templates for you to customize with images and copy. You create your story all at once so you can easily see how it will look and flow once it’s done. All of the templates have a modern, minimalist look, so if that’s not your style you may want to check out another app with more variety in terms of aesthetic.
4. Splice
If you want more vertical video editing capabilities, Splice has got you covered. The app lets you trim and crop video, which can come in handy if you want to use part of video that you originally took horizontally. You can also add animations, effects and music to make your video pop.
5. Planoly
If you like to plan out your social media content ahead of time, Planoly is a useful tool for Instagram strategizing. The visual planner and post scheduler lets you manage your Instagram page and stories so you can see how your profile feed and stories will look before you hit post. Scheduling stories ahead of time and setting reminders for yourself can take away the added headache of remembering to post.
How do you make your Instagram stories stand out? Let us know in the comments!
Photo: Unsplash user Le Buzz
