How to publish Instagram Feed posts: a guide for eCommerce store owners
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How to publish Instagram Stories: a guide for eCommerce store owners
Stories became an Instagram feature in August 2019 and have been gaining more and more popularity among users ever since. Every day, 500 million people interact with Instagram Stories — or, as the users say, IG Stories.
Stories are also a great way to promote your business. 58% of users say they become more interested in products after seeing them on Stories. What’s more, 50% report they have visited a website to find out more about the service or product they learned about from a Story.
In this article, we will talk about the ins and outs of Instagram Stories, discuss how you can use them to promote your web store and products, and what tools can help you create engaging content for this placement.
Make sure to check out other articles from our Instagram series:
7 ways how to use Instagram Reels to promote your eCommerce store
How to publish Instagram Feed posts: a guide for eCommerce store owners
Contents
A closer look at Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories are a feature that enables people to post photos, videos, and other types of content that disappear after 24 hours. Here, you can share:
- photos and videos
- Instagram posts and Reels
- text
- birthday wishes
- GIFs
- show recommendations
- polls
- questions
- donations
- countdowns
- songs
- quizzes
Instagram Stories have become wildly popular because they let people publish something without giving it too much thought. They eliminate the pressure of creating immaculate content. Instead, people can spontaneously share their thoughts and updates and ask opinions knowing that the Story will soon disappear.
How to see old Stories on Instagram
Instagram Stories don’t vanish completely after 24 hours. You can always find your old Stories in the archive. To do so, you need to:
- Tap the icon in the bottom right corner to go to your Profile
- Go to the burger menu
on the top of the profile and tap on Account Settings - Tap Archive. Here you can view your Stories in reverse chronological order, and sort them by date or location
Also, you can save Stories to your profile page with highlights. Here’s how to add highlights on Instagram:
- Go to your Instagram profile
- Above the posts, you will see the Story highlights. Tap the
icon to create new highlights - Select the Stories you want to add to highlights. You can add up to 100 Stories
- Type in the title and tap Edit cover if you want to upload your custom image here
- Tap Done.
Your highlights will appear in the profile. The number of Story highlights you can create is unlimited.
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Publishing Instagram Stories
The Instagram design and developing teams have invested — and keep investing — enormous resources into making the user experience in the app smooth and effortless. As a result, all features are easy to use — posting Instagram Stories is no exception.
Here’s how to post different types of content on your Instagram Stories:
How to create Instagram Stories
- From the Instagram Feed, tap the
icon and select Stories. Alternatively, just swipe left from the Feed
- A camera will open. Tap the white circle to take a photo, tap and hold it to record a video. To add an image from your gallery, tap the Gallery icon in the bottom left corner. Alternatively, tap Create
icon to post text, wish happy birthday, publish a GIF, etc. - Once you have your content added, tap Next
- You can mark your Story as branded content and paid partnership by tapping the
icon - Add text by tapping at the top of the screen
- Tap the Sticker
icon to add Location, mention an Instagram account, add music, etc. - Tap Effects to add one of the many effects available on Instagram
- Once you’re ready, tap the
icon to publish your Story. - You can share your Story with all your followers, Close friends (people you select), or send it as a Message.
Here’s how to share an IG post to Story: just tap a Paper plane 
icon and then tap Add post to Story.
Also, if you’re looking for how to repost a Story on Instagram, note that you can do it only if you’re tagged in the Story. You will receive a direct message notifying you that a user has tagged you. Open the message and you’ll be able to repost the Story on your profile.
How to add multiple photos to an Instagram story
There are two ways to post multiple pictures on the Instagram Story: using Layout or Stickers features.
Here’s how to post several photos to an Instagram Story using Layout:
- Tap Add a Story or swipe left to create a new Story
- Tap the Layout
icon on the left - To change the layout of multiple photos, tap
. You can choose to post up to 6 photos - Take photos or select them from the galley
- When you’ve uploaded all the images, tap
- Tap to publish the Story
Put multiple pictures on Instagram Story using Stickers:
- Tap Add a Story or swipe left to create a new Story
- Tap the Sticker icon at the top
- Scroll down to find
and tap it - Your gallery will open
- When the second photo is added to the Story, tap it to change its shape. You can choose a rectangle, circle, square, heart, and star
- Tap to publish the Story
How to add Reels to Instagram Stories
- Go to the Reel you want to share
- Tap the Paper plane icon
- Tap Add Reel to your Story
How to change the background color on the Instagram Story
You can change the background color of your Instagram Story when you post it using Create feature:
- Tap Add a Story or swipe left to create a new Story
- Tap Create icon
- Navigate between the icons at the bottom to choose what to post: text, birthday wishes, GIF, etc.
- Once you have your content, tap Next
- Tap the circle at the right bottom of the screen to change the background color
How to add music to Instagram Stories
Follow the next steps to put music on an Instagram Story:
- Tap Add a Story or swipe left to create a new Story
- Add a photo or video
- Tap a Sticker icon
- Tap Music
- Search for the song you want to add
- To add the song, tap on it. Move the timeline at the bottom to select which part of the song you want to feature
- Tap the song sticker to select how it will be displayed: as lyrics or a thumbnail. Tap Done
- Tap to publish the Story.
How to add links to Instagram Story
Earlier, only profiles with over 10,000 followers could add a swipe-up link on Instagram. However, now this feature is accessible to everyone. Here’s how to use it:
- Tap Add a Story or swipe left to create a new Story
- Add your content
- Tap the Sticker icon
- Tap Link
- Paste or type in the URL
- Type in sticker text. It will appear in your Story
- Tap to publish the Story
How to create Instagram Stories with mobile apps
The Instagram app offers versatile tools to create interactive and visually appealing content for Stories. However, if you feel like it’s not enough, check out these apps for creating beautiful Instagram Stories. All these apps have got 4.8 rating in AppStore based on hundreds of thousands of reviews.
This app helps you unleash your creativity with a great range of preset templates, cool filters, effects, text fonts, themes, etc.
StoryArt features over 2000 Story templates, more than 400 animated templates, over 70 themes with different designs and colors, over 120 highlights icons, and so much more. You can use this app to create not just Stories, but also videos for posts and Reels.
This app for editing photos and videos offers you a great variety of features to create captivating Stories. Not only InShot enables you to trim, crop, and merge videos, but also with its help, you can add filters, video backgrounds, add your own music to an Instagram Story that can fade in and out. In addition, with the help of speed control, you can create slow motion and fast videos.
Canva is a popular online tool and mobile app that helps edit photos and create impressive designs for different purposes — including Instagram Stories —- fast and effortlessly.
Canva has more than 60,000 templates created by professional designers. It is a powerful photo editor that helps apply filters, change brightness, add vignettes, use stock images, etc. Also, this app lets you edit videos and create video collages.
Running Instagram Stories Ad
Running Instagram Stories ads is not very different from advertising on other Instagram placements. Follow these steps to set up and run ads on Instagram Stories:
- Go to Ads Manager
- Either Create a new campaign or Use an existing one
- In the Ad Set settings, after choosing your budget and audiences, you will need to select Manual Placements
- Then in the Platforms, choose Instagram, and in the Placements, select Instagram Stories
- Set up the creative in the Ad tab. You can Create a new ad, Use an existing post, or Use Creative Hub Mockup. If you decide to create an Instagram Story ad from scratch, you can use a single image/video or a carousel with 2 and more images and videos
- Fill in Headline and Description fields
- Type in Primary text and set up Tracking
- Once everything is ready, click Promote now to publish your IG Story ad.
Also, you can boost your Instagram Story right from the mobile app if you have a business account. Follow these steps to do so:
- Go to your profile
- Access your Story by tapping the profile picture
- Tap Boost at the bottom
- Select Boost
- Choose or create the Audience
- Set the Budget
- Specify Duration
- Tap Next or → icon
- Tap Create Ad
With Adwisely, you can effortlessly set up automated ads on Instagram, as well as on Facebook, Google Search, YouTube, and Gmail. The app enables you to set up your first campaign in under 15 minutes and allows you to spend as little as 5 minutes a day managing your ads on these platforms.
Conclusion
In a very short time, Stories became one of the most popular content formats on Instagram. Nowadays, it’s impossible to imagine an effective content strategy for eCommerce businesses that doesn’t involve them. Use the tips above to make sure your Stories engage your audiences and lead to more sales.