Stories are huge and as a matter of fact, growing. They are an ideal outlet for brands and businesses to present and sell their products. It’s considered an authentic and casual way to sell. There are over 500 million Instagram stories active every day. Make sure that you use this social media feature in an optimized way. Even though stories are known for low quality, there are ways to make the best of it. Using the optimised Instagram story dimensions and format is a great first step to making your content appealing.
Exact Instagram Story dimensions
- 9:16 and 16:9 and 4:5
- resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels
It’s optimal to use an image and video ratio of 9:16 and 16:9 and 4:5. In this case the desired resolution is 1080 x 1920 pixels. The minimum width is 500 pixels and the maximum aspect ratio is 90 x 160. The maximum length of Instagram stories is 15 seconds. But the good news is, you could post as many slides as you want. This makes stories basically without a length limit.
As a mainly mobile app, Instagram focuses on offering content that fits best on mobile. Thus, to optimize your stories and achieve best impact on your audience, it’s recommended to use vertical videos made with your phone. If you have horizontal footage, Instagram would automatically crop your video, zoom it out and place it on background. This could make your video appear smaller and seem less attractive. It’s also a good idea to top up your knowledge about design, before you create your stories
Optimize your Instagram Stories
Your efforts to create quality content are worth it when you manage to optimise. Knowing what matters most for the algorithm and delivering it could bring much better results.
- High quality images/videos – as Instagram compresses the files when you upload them, it’s best to make sure the quality of your images and videos before uploading. Compressing graphics that are pixelized or blurry to begin with, would lead to unattractive post. Furthermore, if you plan to run an ad campaign, the platform won’t allow you to do so if the quality of your content is low.
- Right dimensions – Instagram stories are mainly viewed on mobile devices. The best possible thing you could do is to make sure your video takes up the whole screen. This is most impactful, influential and memorable for the audience. Stick to ratio of 9:16 and you are good to go.
- Fast internet connection – the quality of your story could be affected in a negative way if your internet connection is slow. Instagram does that to save resources for user experience. Make sure your connection is fast and stable while uploading stories. It’s a good idea to double check your posted content from someone else’s device and account and see how it appears.
Using Instagram Stories for your business
- 90% of users on Instagram follow a business account
It’s no secret that as the fastest growing social platform, Instagram has over a billion active users every day.
- 30% of users claim they’ve bought a product seen on Instagram
This is the social media of young people and #instamademebuyit is a growing trend. The platform made it possible for businesses to sell their products easily with Shopify. In addition, it dedicated a separate ”Shop” search filter for users. The entire process of making a purchase on Instagram is smooth and simple for users.
- 75% of users would eventually click on an ad on Instagram
500 million people use Instagram stories on a daily basis. If you have an account with over 10k followers, you are among the fortunate ones to have a swipe up feature on your stories. This way you could easily direct users to your website. Redirecting traffic via stories is a powerful tool that’s worth taking advantage of.
- 75% of US businesses use Instagram in 2020
When numbers talk this loud, it would be ignorant to overlook the power of social media when it comes to business opportunities. The majority of US businesses are already taking their piece of the pie. New channels for generating leads could potentially grow your revenue. Online presence is more important than ever, now that the pandemic is keeping people home.
To sum up, it’s easy to optimise your stories performance. Sticking to the optimal Instagram story dimensions is a fast track to reaching more people. Simple changes make a big difference when it comes to how the algorithm is treating you. To make things easier, having a savvy Content Manager is useful.
