Insta Stories: Everything You Should Know + Free Book

This guide will explain to you what is Insta, or IG stories. What is the best Instagram story viewer. How to download an Instagram story. And how to view Instagram stories anonymously.

This guide will also explain to you what is the best time to post your Insta stories. What are the best practices and big no-nos. And how to use your IG stories to boost your Instagram growth and revenue.

Let us jump right in.

What Is An Insta Stories?

Insta stories are a form of Instagram content that disappears 24 hours after posting. Introduced in August 2016, IG stories became a perfect tool to grow followers and revenue.

Why You Should Use Instagram Stories?

Instagram Stories Build Affinity And Trust With Your Audience

IG stories are a great way to show behind the scene content. Or the day-by-day life of a person. Or a brand.

Instagram stories help your audience get to know you better. Which helps increase trust and engage more with your content and calls to action.

Instagram Stories Help You Funnel Your Audience

Thanks to the link sticker in your IG stories, you can funnel your audience off Instagram to any destination you need.

It can be your product sales page, lead magnet, free trial. Or simply a blog post.

Instagram Stories Help Revealing What Your Profile Is About

Your Instagram bio is limited to 150 characters. It may not be sufficient to reveal the essence of your accounts and all the benefits you offer to your followers.

Use IG Stories to tell more about yourself or your business. Use them to show your valuable products and services, content, and special offers.

Instagram Stories Boost Your Followers and Revenue

Instagram stories are a great way to grow your followers and revenue. You will learn everything about it from this guide.

Instagram Stories Content Guide

IG stories consist of multiple types of content. Here is the complete list:

• Photos
• Images
• Video
• Text
• Drawings
• Effects
• Stickers

Let us have a close look at each one of them.

How to create IG stories with an image or a photo:

1. Tap on your profile photo;
2. Choose the desired image or a photo from your smartphone library;
3. Create and publish your Instagram story.

Make sure your photos and images maintain the following dimensions: 1080px by 1920px for the best results.

Hint: You can use Instagram stories templates from Canva to make sure your stories look great, engaging, and follow the dimensions guidelines.

How to create IG stories with a live photo:

1. Tap on your profile photo and choose a camera;
2. Snap a photo;
3. Create and publish your Instagram story.

How to create IG stories without an image or photo:

1. Tap on your profile photo;
2. Select your camera;
3. Tap on Create;
4. Create and publish your Instagram story.

How to create IG stories with a video:

1. Tap on your profile photo;
2. Select the camera;
3. Choose a video from your smartphone library;
4. Create and publish your Instagram story.

How to create IG stories with a live video:

1. Tap on your profile photo;
2. Choose a camera;
3. Record a video;
4. Create and publish your Instagram story.

How to add a text to your IG story:

1. In your story, tap on the text button;
2. Type your text;
3. Choose font, color, and animation style;
4. Hit Done;
5. Finish and publish your Instagram story.

How to add a hand drawing to your Instagram stories:

1. In your story, tap on the three dots button. And choose Draw;
2. Slide your finger across the screen;
3. Choose marker style, color, thickness;
4. Hit Done when ready;
5. Finish and publish your Instagram story.

How to add effects to your Instagram story:

1. In your story, tap on the effects button;
2. Browse the effects collection;
3. Add the desired effect;
4. Finish and publish your Instagram story.

Hint: If you apply an effect to a still image or a video, your effects selection is quite limited.

But if you are creating your Instagram story from a selfie, you may open a whole gallery of Instagram filters.

How to add a filter to your selfie Instagram story:

1. When creating a story with your selfie, slide right to find the effects;
2. Tap on the gallery at the bottom of the screen;
3. Select effect gallery;
4. Choose the desired effect;
5. Finish and publish your Instagram story.

How To Make Money With Your Instagram Stories?

Instagram does not provide a direct monetization method, unlike Youtube or TikTok. However, you still have many options to make money with your Insta stories. Let us check them out.

Paid Instagram Stories

If you have at least 5000 followers on Instagram, you are a nano influencer.

Such influencers are particularly valuable because they have a loyal audience and high conversions from their posts and stories.

Small and local brands love to work with nano influencers because they offer reasonable costs and high returns on investment.

How much can you earn with your Instagram Stories?

The average cost per story of a nano influencer is around $50.

If you need a more detailed estimate for your particular account, you can use Hypeauditor.

This tool will analyze your account and provide you with a more accurate cost per your Instagram story and post.

Please note that brands use Hypeauditor to audit accounts they consider working with. So make sure you check yours beforehand.

Pro Tip: You may consider getting verified on Instagram to boost your earnings from paid Instagram stories and posts.

Verified influencers earn up to ten times more than their non-verified colleagues with the same number of Instagram followers.

Instagram Shopping

Insta stories can boost your Instagram shoppable posts bringing you more reach and engagement.

You can also create Instagram shoppable stories to direct your followers to your products.

Flocksocial has put together a comprehensive guide to start and grow your Instagram shopping. You can read the complete guide here.

Grow Your Email List With Instagram Stories

Email is still the king. If you ignore it, you leave a lot of money on the table.

Let us see how you can use Instagram stories to skyrocket your mail list and grow your sales.

First off, let us talk about three main problems that most people have with their email lists.

If you follow me and implement this part, you will outperform your competition in no time.

Problem 1. It is hard to grow your email list.

Most people and brands struggle to grow their email lists. It happens because they do it the wrong way.

Let me reveal the secret.

To grow your email list in no time, you need to automate your Instagram messaging using officially approved chatbots.

Here is how it works in three easy steps:

1. You register a free account with Insta Champ here. And set up an automation.
2. Fans and prospects message you on Instagram and comment on your stories and posts.
3. Insta Champ auto-replies in DM to those who comment. And collects emails and phone numbers.

That is it! Once the leads start collecting in your Insta Champ account, you can export them to your email sender for further marketing and sales.

And this is how we solve our first problem: The above secret method will boost your email list in no time.

Problem 2: It is hard to convert your mail list into sales

You have an extensive email list. Now what? People and brands struggle to convert their email lists and make sales from them.

It happens because their emails are not optimized for conversions.

Here is another secret to getting around this problem.

Use Flowdesk.

Flowdesk is a handy, free tool that helps you create beautiful and high-converting emails.

It also seamlessly connects with your Instagram to bring you more followers and loyal fans.

See Flowdesk in action, and boost your email conversions easily and fast.

Now you learned how to solve the conversion. It is time to tackle the third problem.

Problem 3. It is expensive to maintain an email list when it starts growing.

Email tools are expensive, and their free versions have limited features.

The cost issue becomes more obvious even after passing your first 500 subscribers.

Many people and brands spend more money on their email lists than they earn from the list itself.

Flowdesk will help you solve that problem too.

Their free plan gives you more than any other email tool out there. And if you ever decide to upgrade to a simple, flat, no-limit paid plan, here is a 50% discount for you.

What Is The Best Time To Post Your Instagram Stories?

Using the best time to post your Insta stories will double your Instagram reach. And boost your Instagram account growth.

To find the best time and days to post your Insta stories and posts, you need to know when your audience is most active on Instagram. You can find it out in your Instagram analytics.

How Not To Miss The Best Time To Post Your Instagram Stories?

The Planoly app for Instagram has built a handy feature that does all the job for you.

It analyzes the activity level of your followers. Suggest the best time to post for your particular account. And helps you schedule your posts. This way you will reach more people, get more engagement and grow your account and revenue.

You can check the Planoly app and all its features here.

What Is The Universal Best Time To Post Your Instagram Stories?

Metricool has done an extensive study and analyzed 140,244 Instagram accounts.

They revealed that the best universal time to post on Instagram is around 8 PM.

What Is The Universal Best Day To Post Your Instagram Stories?

Metricool revealed that user activity level is very similar on each day of the week. But they noticed that Thursdays and Mondays are slightly better.

Instagram Stories Best Practices

Use high-quality images or videos to make the most of your Instagram stories.

The images and videos should maintain the following dimensions: 1080px by 1920px.

Please also make sure your story looks clean and has a clear call to action if it’s relevant.

To drive followers to your target destination, use a link sticker together with your call to action.

You may include other stickers to raise interaction and engagement for your Instagram story.

If you use Insta stories highlights, make sure they have clean and professional covers.

Segregate your highlights by topic. It will help your followers navigate them more easily.

Use relevant hashtags in your stories to boost impressions, and get a chance to appear on the explore page.

Finally, you may consider adding music to your Insta stories to give them a particular mood and feel.

Instagram Stories Big No-Nos!

Now you learned the best practices to make the most of your Insta stories. It is time to learn the things you should avoid doing.

Do not use low-quality images and videos. Avoid stretched and blurred images. Instagram can recognize them and limit your story distribution.

Do not clutter your story with excessive visuals and details. Your may overload your followers. Don’t let them lose focus and leave.

Do not use more than one call to action: If you use more than one call to action in your story, your followers will take neither. Choose a single CTA and build focus around it.

Instagram Stories Bonus Tips

Do Not Rely Only On Instagram Stories

Metricool study shows that Insta stories receive up to five times less reach than Instagram posts.

And the big Instagram accounts receive up to six times less distribution for their stories. Compared to their posts.

It may happen because Instagram stories expire after 24 hours. As opposed to IG posts that do not expire.

As a solution, use Insta stories as a valuable addition to the main content in your feed.

Use Instagram Stories Highlights

The more time people spend on your stories, the more affinity and trust you build. But, as we already know, Insta stories expire 24 hours after posting.

The solution is simple. Craft engaging story highlights that will not expire.

Make sure you include all the essential information into your stories highlights. That drives engagement with your content and calls to action.

How To Download An Instagram Story In One Click?

Instagram lets you download your own stories.

To do that, just tap on the three dots button inside your story and hit download.

But if you want to download someone else’s Instagram story, you can easily do that in one click using the following tools.

Toolzu.com

Toolzu.com is a free tool that helps you download any Instagram story from another account. Here is how you can download an Instagram story using this tool:

1. Go to toolzu.com;
2. Type username of the account;
3. Click Save to download Instagram story.

If you need more options to download an Instagram story from another account, here they are:

Save-insta.com

Save-insta.com is another simple and free Insta stories downloader. Here is how you can download an Instagram story using save-insta.com:

1. Go to save-insta.com;
2. Type username of the account;
3. Click Save to download Instagram story.

Instadp.com

You may also consider instadp.com – an Insta stories downloader that is free and easy to use. Follow these steps to download an Instagram story using storysaver.net:

1. Go to instadp.com;
2. Type username of the account;
3. Click Continue;
4. Check captcha;
5. Click Save to download Instagram story.

What Is The Best Instagram Story Viewer?

If you look for a free Instagram story viewer, look no more. You can easily do that with the free Instagram story downloaders suggested above. In case if you need more options to view Instagram stories, here they are:

Insta-stories.online

Insta-stories.online is a free anonymous Instagram story viewer. Use this tool to view any Instagram stories online:

1. Navigate this Instagram story viewer at Insta-stories.online;
2. Chose an Instagram username;
3. Hit search;
4. View instagram stories.

Anonigviewer.com

Anonigviewer.com is another free anonymous Instagram story viewer. It helps you view Instagram stories online exactly like the previous viewer:

1. Navigate this Instagram story viewer at anonigviewer.com;
2. Chose an Instagram username;
3. Hit search;
4. View instagram stories.

Storiesdown.com

Last on our list is storiesdown.com. This anonymous Instagram story viewer will help you view Instagram stories anonymously. Follow these simple steps:

1. Navigate this Instagram story viewer on storiesdown.com;
2. Chose an Instagram username;
3. Hit search;
4. View instagram stories.

Five Best Apps For Your Instagram Stories

Here is the list of the five best Insta stories apps from this guide. In one place for your convenience.

1 Planoly

Planoly is a handy and useful Instagram management tool. It analyzes your audience activity level. And suggests the best time to post to your stories and feed. So your stories and posts could reach more people, get more engagement and grow your Instagram account and revenue.

You can register your Planoly account here.

2 Metricool

Metricool is a great analytical tool for your Instagram account, stories, and posts. It also helps you with your posts schedule.

You can sign up for a free Metricool account here.

3 HypeAuditor

HypeAuditor will provide your Instagram account with a complete health analysis and revenue estimate.

You can get a free HypeAuditor account here.

4 Insta Champ

Insta Champ is an official Instagram chat automation tool that will boost your email list and Instagram account growth.

You can get a free Insta Champ account here.

5 Flodesk

Flowdesk is a handy, free tool that helps you create beautiful and high-converting emails.

It also seamlessly connects with your Instagram to bring you more followers and loyal fans.

Flowdesk free plan gives you more than any other email tool out there. And if you ever decide to upgrade to their simple, flat no limit paid plan here is your 50% discount.

Instagram Stories: FAQ

Will it boost my Insta stories reach, If I get verified on Instagram?

Yes. If you engage with other stories, your blue checkmark gets visible to other users and helps you stand out. It also entices users to check you out and engage with your posts and stories.

Learn how to get verified on Instagram guaranteed here.

Will my stories get more reach if I post them more often?

No. Instagram micro tests every story. If it does not get much engagement in the first two hours, Instagram will limit its distribution. Regardless of the number of Insta stories you post.

To get more reach for your Insta stories, you should focus more on their quality and calls to action.

What are the best courses to master Insta stories?

These are by far the best courses that will teach you how to craft perfect Instagram stories. And grow your followers and revenue.

Instagram Marketing 2021: Complete Guide To Instagram Growth Instagram Marketing 2021: Hashtags, Live, Stories, Ads & more

Conclusions and Next Steps

Now you learned everything about Instagram stories. And found answers to the questions like what is Insta, or IG stories. What is the best Instagram story viewer. How to download an Instagram story. And how to view Instagram stories anonymously.

You have also learned about the best time to post your Insta stories. The best practices and big no-nos. And how to use your IG stories to boost your Instagram growth and revenue.

If you want to take the knowledge and secrets from this guide with you, you can download the Instagram stories guidebook and make it yours.