Theres no doubt that during these times we have been able to take time to relax, refresh, and rewind. Now that you've had more time for yourself, it's the perfect opportunity to learn something new!
Instagram stories have a captivating way to stay engaged with your audience without having to post to your feed every single day. We learn our followers likes and dislikes, what drives them to your business/page, and what they want to see!
That all begins with having quality content. As lash artists we are able to create beauty at the end of our tweezers with such ease, but have you fallen back a little and forgotten about the beauty of marketing? I know, beauty of marketing... what is she talking about?
Now is the perfect time to work on your story marketing! Unfortunately our nimble fingers are at a creative loss recently and we haven't been able to continue our craft during these times, but there is still a way to be creative and still engage your audience!
Instagram stories
Now you may think it's simple just to throw up a #TBT post and call it a day, but during times like this it is important to maintain the connection we have with our followers. You can really learn a lot about them such as their needs and interests. At the end of the day thats what drives your business. You want to provide something that other people want! - Let's get creative with it.
Here are a few ways to make your Instagram stories, TELL A STORY.
1. Keep a fun theme going through the quarantine:
I like to use the same themed backgrounds in my filmed stories (of me or what I'm doing) AND in my written stories!
Here's a hack you can use with your filter to have simple fun background in all your posts.
(it doesn't work on all filters but play around and find ones you like)
2. Try a fun new way to display a new post in your feed!
3. You may think that instagram limits you to only certain colours, and from the outside -it does.
But if you hold down the colours at the bottom of your page a colour scale will appear! Here you can customize your background and font colours to anything your heart desires.
4. Now that you are familiar with the tip above... Pick a colour and HOLD down the background on your story to fill the whole background with that colour! Save time without having to paint it yourself.
5. Now that you've learned that fun trick, you can now apply it to some of your photos! Here's a fun way to display a NEW POST by giving a sneak peek behind one of your themed colours, by erasing part of the background colour away.
6. You can also use the HIGHLIGHTER paint tool to have a film-like filter over your image so your viewers can still see.
7. Get creative with your story telling. Play around with your text to catch the viewers eye. Don't just use 1 style of text in your stories. Try a drop shadow like below by simply writing out your text TWICE and layering them on each other.
Make use of polls, question boxes, etc. Instagram also takes into consideration your story engagement. So start making some story art!
8. Create a collage! This one is super easy and not many people know how simple it can be to do. Just go to the photo in your camera roll that you want to add to your story and
"COPY PHOTO"
Then go back to your story, select the text button at the top and tap on the screen until you see "PASTE" appear.
Simply PASTE your photo and voila! You can do it to as many photos as you like and create a collage.
9. Ever wonder how to add more than 1 response to your questions on your story? No one wants to see a million pages of all your responses. So consider adding more than 1 to your story post.
10. Now let's put a couple of the tricks we've learned into play here. Heres a cool way to have a cute moving background.
-Take a picture of nothing
-Go to Gifs and find something you like that you can expand on
-ZOOM in full and save that as a video
-Go back to your files and upload that new video to your story
-Colour your background to your theme colour
-Erase away the areas you want exposed, and VOILA!
Now that you are an Instagram Story expert, it's time for you to play around with a couple apps outside instagram to take your stories to the next level. Here are 3 MUST HAVE story apps:
-Mojo
-Unfold
-PicsArt
If you're interested in how I edit with these 3 apps keep your eyes peeled for more online content coming in the near future!
Tag me in your stories for a feature! I want to see how creative you all got :) Can't wait!
Follow @thatlashgirl on instagram for more tips and tricks.