For every brand looking to use Instagram for promoting their business, including Instagram stories in their marketing strategy is important. Instagram stories dominate the market, and these below statistics will make it clear why?
- As of January 2019, more than 500 million users use Instagram stories daily
- Businesses get around 1/3rd views from the total IG stories’ views.
- 50% of businesses globally made IG stories typically once every month
When a brand posts a swipe up a link using an IG story, 15%-25% of people use it.
These statistics show how important Instagram stories are for a brand. Not only a brand can use IG stories to share links, but it also helps a brand make a relationship with its customers. When they share behind the scenes posts, it shows the audience their humane side. Also, it creates excitement amongst the audience about the launch of your new product or services.
We usually click pictures and post it as IG story, or we share live videos or made-up videos using Instagram as stories. But there is another way to post creative and engaging Instagram stories, and that is by creating them using the Canva app. It lets you create a template, which is great for consistency within your stories.
Let’s explore below how to use Canva to create Instagram stories.
With Canva, you can create a customized template using different fonts, graphics, and backgrounds. Using a template for your Instagram story gives your brand a consistent look, which is important for increasing likes, followers, and engagement levels.
It will help give a uniform look to your Instagram aesthetic, which is crucial for growing your business. Now, how to use Canva for creating an IG story? Read below.
Create an account
The first step is to create a free account on Canva. Then after that, you can select a template from the thousands of templates that Canva had for IG story and customize it so that it suits your brand.
Upload your brand’s logo, color scheme, and font to customize the logo for your brand.
Create your own Instagram story template using Canva
- To create your own beautiful Instagram story template, follow these steps:
- Open Canva, and then select create a template.
- Alternatively, you can also select any of the templates Canva has for Instagram stories.
- Now, tap on the blank template and start designing your custom stories for Instagram.
- Next, choose from numerous elements Canva offers to your story.
- To add elements, select the plus sign, which you will find on the lower right side of the screen. It will allow you to add elements, text, and graphics, and so on. You have the option to select these elements from a pack or make changes to pre-existing graphics.
- Also, you can add an image that you have on your laptop or desktop using the camera roll.
How to use the Cana Photo Library?
With Canva, you get access to a lot of images and illustrations that you can use for your Instagram stories template. It has over a million pictures, and you can browse through them to ensure that you get the right image. These are free images, but there are premium images too that you can buy at affordable prices.
Adding Videos
If you want your Instagram story to look more appealing, add a video to your template. Use any mobile device to shoot a video, and use the Canva mobile app, and add a video to your favorite template. It will give your video a more curated and branded look.
When you can use the Canva template in your Instagram stories?
With Canva, you can create numerous different templates using Canva according to the Instagram story that you are making or plan on sharing. It even lets you make branded templates.
Here are some ideas as to when you can use these templates for your stories:
1. Updates and Announcement
Use Canva to create a template with a blank space to add text and photos. You can use this template to announce brand products, updates, or more.
You can even share links to your new blog post in the story using the template. Just add text and photo into the template and create a story that will grab the attention of your audience.
2. Quotes or feedbacks
Want to share customer feedback or do you post lots of quotes on Instagram? Don’t use the same Instagram background and filters. Create a template using Canva and add your brand color or font and logo, and make the quote or feedback resonate more with your brand.
3. Freebies
Share discounts or offers or freebies using Instagram stories. Canva has templates for this like black and white Sale Kid’s fashion story to share links for the same.
Highlight Covers for Instagram stories
Instagram has released a new feature known as Instagram highlight covers. It is a great opportunity for brands to get more followers and engage more people. If you use branded templates to create these highlight stories, your brand will have a more uniform look, and your brand will become more popular amongst your target audience.
How to do this?
- Choose any template and tap anywhere on the design to change the background color. You will see a rainbow-colored box, tap on it, and you will see a lot of different color options. Choose the color of your brand, or you can enter the HEX code of the color that you want.
- Next, if you want to add icons, select the graphics option, and with the help of the search function, add the graphic that you want. If you have your graphics or icons that your designer created for your brand, add them.
- Once you are done with creating your Instagram highlight cover, download it to your device, and use it however and whenever you want.
Even influencers use templates to share Instagram stories which make them look more professional. As a brand that is looking to get more referrals from Instagram, using IG stories is imperative and using templates for the same can help you get more engagement and followers.