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Sometimes we have remarkable memories or instant events happening in our lives that we may want to share with our close ones. This amusement is excellent for our souls, and we should be thankful. Apart from that, we can learn to use Instagram Stories to share those little moments with our followers and make them happy too, at least for 24 hours.
Instagram Stories are an excellent feature for both individuals and businesses. We can use it to drive more organic traffic to our web sites, share quick remarks about the country’s important news and events. We can even use it to seduce our significant others. Well, what would you expect more from Instagram?
However, it can be a pain in the back to learn how to make an Instagram Story, as it is something new for a lot of us.
What Is an Instagram Story?
Well, Instagram Stories are the most sophisticated invention of all human history. Jokes aside, it lets Insta users share their instant videos or photos, which they can snap right at that moment, as well as from their camera roll.
These stories stay visible for the visitors or followers of that mentioned Instagram profile for 24 hours at most, which means that this feature is ephemeral.
We should mention one last thing. It is indeed clear to get a grasp of the basics of this fun feature and share the best moments of your life with your followers for a short amount of time. However, it is not that easy to master.
How Do Instagram Stories Work?
Instagram Stories can add a lot to your business or brands in many possible ways. First of all, it is the most efficient way to drive organic and relevant traffic to your web site. It does not matter if you use the Stories for business or personal purposes, effects stay the same.
Since its launching in 2016, the highly controversial feature added to its success every passing day, and today more than 400m users are using Stories every day. In this way, they managed to get ahead of Snapchat Stories in almost no time.
Additionally, with this extraordinary success, the overall daily usage of Instagram jumped from 24 minutes to a whopping 32 minutes. Let those numbers sink in for a moment.
Considering that Instagram only allows you to add a single URL to your profile, you will like the ‘Swipe Up’ feature of the Stories. If you are a verified Instagram account, or you have more than 10k followers, you will gain access to this feature; which allows you to add redirected links to your Stories.
If you are having problems with Instagram Stories, this may indicate a problem in your app. You can solve your problems by having a look at our relative article.
How Long Are Instagram Stories?
Instagram Stories are intended to stay on your profile for a precise 24 hours. However, a particular story cannot be longer than 15 seconds at most. We suspect this length is meant to prevent spam from harmful accounts. Either way, it prevents us innocent souls too from enjoying Stories at its fullest.
Nevertheless, at least it is currently possible to split a singular story to 15 seconds long segments for now. In that way, for instance, you can divide a 60 second long Instagram Story into four individual parts and share them. With this, you can post a single story in four different sections.
How to View Instagram Stories?
When you view stories from the top of your Feed, they automatically scroll from one person’s to the next. You can tap the screen to skip to the next photo or video, or swipe right or left to skip between people’s stories. Swipe down on the screen to exit someone’s story and return to Feed.
Instagram Help
When you launch your regular Instagram app on your mobile device, stories of the people and brands you follow on the network will welcome you on the top of the app.
You should encounter with circular icons that contain the poster’s profile picture and a reddish frame around it. The far-left one should be your Story section, holding your profile picture. If you did not add any Stories in the last 24 hours, your representation should contain a plus icon too. This icon allows you to add new Stories by simply tapping on it.
This situation is also the case for the website of the network. Back then, it was not possible to view Instagram Stories on desktop and mobile browsers. However, now it is possible to view them bu, you still cannot see the metrics and insights of your own Stories.
- Open Instagram on either your mobile device or desktop and login to your account with your credentials to see your home feed.
- Each circular frame you see on the top of your home feed represents an Instagram account. You can navigate between them by solely swiping with your finger.
- You can tap on a person’s frame to immediately open their Stories. The stories will display in full screen, which will take almost all of your screen as you may guess.
Additionally, there are some gestures you should get accustomed to when using Instagram Stories. Otherwise, you can get stuck on an Instagram Story without knowing what to do next.
Common gestures you will need when using Instagram Stories- If you tap on the screen one time, the next story on the user’s profile will appear.
- To navigate between the next or previous sharings, you may tap on the left or right edges on the screen.
- You can press on the screen and freeze the story as much as you want. The picture will stay like that as long as you keep your finger on the screen.
- You may swipe left to quickly hop to the next person’s stories at that moment.
- Also, it is possible to swipe right to get back to the previous user’s stories.
- In order to exit and get back to your home feed, you can swipe down from anywhere on the screen.