I used to think that, in order to zoom on Instagram, you always needed to use two fingers to touch the screen and zoom it out, but no. When you start recording, press the record button and slide your finger up the screen. Had no idea it was so easy!
Ever wondered how the influencers turn the screen super fast, when they’re recording Stories or are being Live? All you need to do is quick-tap the screen twice while you’re recording, and your phone will be using the face camera the very next second!
While Stories offer only 5 fonts officially – Classic, Modern, Neon, Typewriter, and Strong – there’s a little trick you can use to go around it and add more fonts to your content. First, make sure your Safari (or Chrome) browser is open on your phone. Then, open the Instagram app, go to Stories, and select (but not upload) the photo you want to share with the world. Then, if you have an iPhone, double tap on your Home button: you’ll see two tabs open at the same time. Go to your browser and open this website: CoolSymbol.com. There, select the “Fancy Text” option and type in whatever you want to say on your Story. That text will be automatically transformed in multiple fonts – all you need to do is scroll down, choose what you like, and click “copy”. The text will be copied to your clipboard in the selected font. After that, double click on your Home button again and go back to your Instagram app – the Stories draft is still there! Go in it, select the text icon (“Aa”), tap and hold on the screen where the blinking cursor is, and click “Paste”: Et voila! Now you have a Story with a text font that no one else has! Pretty cool, isn’t it?
Now that you know how to use different fonts for your Instagram Stories, did you also know that you can make them animated? Yep, that’s right. To do that, download HypeType – a little app to add moving texts to your photos. Here’s how to use it. It’s pretty straightforward, really:
Every cool Instagrammer knows how important it is to have a visually consistent theme. A cool Instagram tip for Stories is creating unique backgrounds for your fonts that are based on the color palette of the photo you’re posting. To do that, you need to use the same technique with the drawing pen, described previously. First, select the picture you want to post and think of a word you want to write. It can be something short and simple. Then, click the text icon (“Aa”) on the top right corner and type the very first letter of the word. Make sure the font is Strong, Classic, or Typewriter. Next step is to add background to the letter by clicking on the icon on the top left corner. After this is done, click on the drawing pen icon, and you’ll see a little tool pop-up. By moving the tool around the photo, the background of the letter will change, depending on where you “land”. Once you’ve selected the background color for the first letter, move on to the next, until you type the word, letter by letter. It might sound like it’s time-consuming at first, but it’s faster than you think. Plus, it looks cool AND it visually matches the photo, creating a holistic look and feel for your content!
Warning: this one might require some finger gymnastics. Once you’ve practiced well enough, though, creating a bright rainbow – or a subtly ombre – text effect will be a piece of cake! Here’s what you need to do:
Ok, this one is pretty easy, but in case you didn’t know: you can actually change the Instagram stickers on Stories by tapping on them. They either change their position OR color. On Stories, you can ALWAYS tap on everything to slightly alter the looks of the stickers. Don’t forget about this simple Instagram tip to differentiate!
Adding hashtags to your Stories is one of the best Instagram growth tips out there. If you do so, you increase your chances of being featured for the hashtags you use, which ultimately boosts your exposure and can get you new followers. While using as many hashtags in Stories can look a bit spammy, if I told you you can make them invisible, would you continue using them? Exactly! Many people refrain from using hashtags in Stories because they look a bit spammy. However, if I told you you can make them invisible, would you use ALL of them? Thought so. It’s easy to do it, by following these super simple steps:
We all know that Instagram algorithm LOVES engagement – especially within the first half an hour of publishing your posts. A lot of engagement straight away means the algorithm recognizes that post is something worth pushing up and up the feed, for more eyes to see. Influencers know that too, and they sometimes use a little trick to draw some extra attention to their latest post. Many of them, interact with other posts for literally 30 minutes straight, 15 minutes before publishing the new post, and 15 minutes after. And by “interact”, I mean they go into their relevant hashtags, see a post, and leave like 10000 likes for that user who posted it. Literally liking everything they see, and even leaving a comment here and there. Before you deem this activity as spammy, what it results in is sparking interest – who is this person? – and wanting to check out the profile back. Which normally results in liking at least one picture from the feed – and usually it’s the very first one they see. Do try this! It’s one of the best Instagram tips you can try to increase your engagement and reach.
Hashtags are like lottery tickets – you want to use them all, and all at once. Admittedly, though, that might look a bit spammy in your Instagram caption, taking attention away from your call to action, or whatever is it that you’re trying to say there. You probably heard the advice to post your hashtags in the first comment – and you probably have been doing that already. However, your followers still can see that huge list of hashtags as your very first comment – so, while this is definitely looks more aesthetically pleasing, it’s definitely still not perfect. The solution? Wrap your hashtags in the […] brackets, like this: How? Easy! When you’re about to paste your pre-researched hashtags (learn how to find your target hashtags here, by the way), post five dots in lines just before the block of your hashtags. Like this: As soon as you post that comment, Instagram will hide your hashtags in the […] brackets, making them look neat and proper!