Instagram stories are a great way to give an alternative medium to your photos without putting them on your main Instagram feed. Having unique Instagram story ideas helps improve reach and engage audiences.
With the platform choked with ideas, it can be hard to come up with something completely new. However, that doesn’t have to be the case!
You can take bits of inspiration from already interesting profiles and create your own.
To help you out, in this article, we’ll take a look at 12 creative Instagram story ideas for inspiration, as well as some tips on which elements to adopt from each.
Let’s jump right in.
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Top 12 Creative Instagram Story Ideas in 2021
It can be confusing figuring out exactly what you should put on your Instagram story. Luckily, you have this article to improve your Instagram marketing strategy. Before you start developing creative Instagram story ideas, your followers should get to know more about you.
To figure out your target audience, you need to ask yourself a few questions like:
- What product/service do you offer?
- Why and what problems can you solve for your audience?
- What type of content will they like?
You should always strive to bring new ideas to the table. To give you an example, we’re going to talk about some different types of content ideas you can use for an Instagram story to keep your audience engaged.
You should also keep the Instagram algorithm in mind when making your IG Stories. The algorithm itself relies on user preferences, stories that people react to, and where they spend most of their time.
All of the methods below work for any type of account. It could be a small business account or a personal blog.
1. Poll Stickers
Poll stickers are a great way to get feedback on almost anything. It doesn’t just have to be limited to your brand. You can talk about a variety of stuff. For instance, you could start a poll about the simplest of things like your favorite food, car or, vacation destination.
Poll stickers are the best way to ask people about the type of content they’d like to see.
The response to surveys can help you in creating more relevant content based on your customer interests.
It can be easy for your followers to drift away. But surveys have always been a fun way to keep your followers engaged.
2. Before and After Edits
Reveals are another way to keep customers hooked. They can be about anything and can help businesses a lot.
Reveals can show anything before a change and what it would look like afterward. Be it your product packaging or just your bedroom transformation.
If you have a product or service, you can showcase the results of your client’s feedback.
There are Instagram accounts that have a wide range of before and after images. By showing the before and after edits, they show their followers how they did it.
Ah, the satisfying transformations.
3. Q&A Videos/Question Sticker
It can be hard to figure out what you want to talk about in your video/IGTV. However, there’s an easy way out. You can collect questions that your followers have asked on the “question sticker” and answer them.
This gives your audience a better chance to get to know you better.
4. Go Live
Going live is a new feature that people are starting to use. When you go live, you can respond to the comments as well. However, it takes time to reply to every individual DM.
That said, it really helps boost engagement on social media.
A really cool feature on IG is that your live video is up on your story for 24 hours, in case if anyone misses it.
Also, your followers also get notified every time you go live, so they can start viewing.
A live video can be about anything. You can talk about a specific topic or a live seminar update.
5. Post Memes
Meme pictures are a new way to relate to each other, plus they have value for captions. The meme aesthetic is recognizable: usually goofy photos with text overlaid above the image or gifs.
You can spot one immediately.
Memes have a very particular audience that spends the most time online and has sarcastic humor. It’s mostly Millennials and Gen Z.
You can make memes that would fit your account, and your followers will probably relate to them. Meme posting helps in grabbing attention, and it’s safe to say that memes are always shareable.
6. Show Your Team/Workplace
If you have a staff, you should introduce them to your followers. It helps everyone connect. Also, your brand gets recognized by more people that way.
It also shows how much you care about your employees. Your staff will also have more pride in their work if they’re recognized.
Showcasing your team shows how you’re around in your workplace and what goes on behind the scene. It also helps improves credibility, as you seem confident and transparent.
7. Tutorial
You can post quick tutorials, or challenges, showing what you do best and how you do it. Be it from small cooking/baking tutorials or for your professional or personal account.
You could create a short video focusing on anything you like. It could show you in action while you’re working. It also helps you build user-generated content.
Most influencers and bloggers do product reviews and small tutorials to show how to use certain products and what the results would be.
If you’re focusing on makeup, tutorials are your best friend.
8. New Post
If you post anything new or have an old Instagram post that you want more people to engage on, repost it on your story feed. It will help you reach a wider audience. Not all your posts show up on everyone’s feed, but reposting your story will help keep it in front of their eyes.
You’ll be able to connect with your audience if you talk about a specific topic in your stories or post on a relevant topic.
9. Repost
If you’re looking for more engagement, reposting can serve as a refresher. Reposting doesn’t have to be limited to your posts. It could be anyone’s post.
It can be anything nice you read and would want to share with your Instagram followers. This way, you also have more content to share, and others get exposure.
Reposting anything with a trending hashtag can increase views as it gets shown to a larger audience.
10. New Product/Product Launch
It’s great to build up the anticipation of a new product that you plan on releasing so your audience is ready for what’s to come. It’s fun to throw in some sneak peeks here and there to keep your audience excited.
It also makes your Instagram followers feel like they’re part of the process and excited for something new. You can create a sense of mystery for them, so when you launch your product for the first time, your audience rushes to see what it is.
Once you launch your product, you can add it to your story with the swipe-up feature. It will take the user directly to the product page.
Additionally, you can partner up with influencers and bloggers to market a new product. You can also give them a personal discount code that they can share with the engaging audience.
11. Testimonials
Happy clients are your most powerful assets. It’s hard to build trust nowadays if you have an online business, but customer testimonials help save the day. You don’t want to fill your main feed with testimonies.
Stories are a great way to keep testimonials in front of your followers. You can even add them to your highlights, so they always stay on your account. Any new user can come and check it out. It helps build credibility.
You can also ask your customers to use the product and tag your account for a chance to get featured.
12. Giveaways
Giveaways are the most trending way to get the maximum social sharing for any specific post and grow your community on Instagram. “You’ve got to spend money to make money.”
In any giveaway, users who share posts get a chance to enter a prize contest; after completing some required steps. It promotes or gives your account a shoutout.
Giveaways aren’t that complicated. All you need to do is:
- Choose a prize for the giveaway
- Decide criteria (follow or share a post)
- Decide a duration
- Create an attractive post for the giveaway with a reminder countdown
- Select a winner
The more giveaways you host, the more people will engage. I mean, who doesn’t like free stuff?
What is the Ideal Instagram Story Size?
The recommended Instagram Story dimensions ideally have an aspect ratio of 9:16, where the size is 1080 x 1920 pixels. It’s always best to keep 250 pixels from the top and bottom as a safe area since it’s usually covered.
This size goes for both images and videos. If it doesn’t fit, the visual will be cropped or zoomed in to fit the screen.
How to Use Pixelied to Bring Your Instagram Story Ideas to Life
Pixeled can help you create detailed and creative stories for Instagram, ads, or catchy profile pictures with the recommended dimensions so that the display picture isn’t cropped or blurry.
It could be a poster or a flyer, product launch, or any of the above. You’re more likely to find relevant templates on Pixelied to get started.
Pixelied offers a bunch of templates. Or, you can choose to start with a blank canvas. You can add text in the heading, sub-headings, or body text.
Step One – Open Pixelied’s Editor
To get started, simply go to our free Pixelied editor.
Step Two – Choose Instagram Story Template
In the left panel, you can go through a bunch of Insta story templates that are ready to use.
All the customizable templates are already set to recommended dimensions (1080 x 1920) by default or you can also use the Instagram resizer tool to adjust the image dimensions.
Step Three – Add Various Design Elements to Your Story Art
Further down, on the left panel, you’ll have multiple options to edit your template. You can edit your story art by adding images, text, illustrations. Furthermore, you also have the option of adding elements like emojis or Icons.
You can also find control options for size, shadows, or opacity, along with blending colors to make your palette with custom gradients.
Step Four – Download Your New Instagram Story Art
Once you’re satisfied with your Instagram story, you can go ahead and click the Download button on the corner right of the workspace.
Choose the file type, quality, and size, and download your art.
Bottom Line
Instagram is all about visuals. And with the help of Pixelied, you can create fun and engaging content.
See, how you use an Insta story is crucial to your success.
Creating content can be a full-time job if you want to keep your followers interested. With the help of this article, you now have some Instagram tips that can help you to create content, increase engagement and followers.
