New Instagram Stories Tricks in 2020

In 2020 Instagram released some great features inside the app. In this article I will show you how these new Instagram tools will make your stories in Instagram more FUN and engaging.

Boo, and I love Instagram stories, because they just skyrocket your engagement on Instagram which in turn will grow your Instagram following. We recommend that you create a story every day. They don't have to be long. We like to use the rule of thumb, three frames. Beginning, middle, and end of your story.

And what's so awesome about Instagram, they are constantly releasing new ways to wow your audience. These tools will t skyrocket your engagement on your stories and make them fun, and great.

I have eight tricks and tips that I want to share with you about Instagram stories today.

Create a fun geometric background.

Start by opening stories and taking a photo. We've made a blank photo. Now I'm going to add some geometric shapes. And to do that, I'm going to click the classic button here, you see? And I am going to pick a period, and then I'm going to space, space, space, space, space, as far as it'll let me. And then I'm going to make another period, okay? And then, I am going to, you see this background, this A? It inverts, so right now, if I was writing, see other periods or dots, can you see the white dots? I'm going to invert that to make the background a color. I'm going to pick a color. So let's go with a pink 'cause I'm loving pink today, and remember, if you hold it down, it gives you the dropper effect and I can change the colors, right? So I'm going to click that one, and I'm going to use my fingers now. Hit done. And I'm going to make this really big, okay? Now I'm going to do it again. Hit the A. Hit the period, space, space, space, space, space, invert. Hit yellow this time. Hit it, do it again. Period. Let's go with a green. You know, you just play with it, and you make it whatever shape you want. Nice, right? So then, I'm going to save this down to my photos, and hit the X. You hit discard after you saved it, and then I can use it as a background going forward, right? And I can say, hello. Isn't that pretty? Love it.

Create a moving background.

The next trick is also a background trick I want to show you, but instead of color blocks, this time, we're going to It's really cool. So you want to start with a photo again. So just click a random photo. You could also upload one from your photos saved on your phone, but it's easier just to click one. And then you're going to add a moving GIF. You can really add anything, but I have found, because someone showed me, this moving diamond that's got lots of colors, this one. And so, I'm going to make it really big so it takes up the whole screen. And then I'm just going to save it as a new video. Remember, GIFs create videos. I taught that in my last Instagram stories tricks and tips videos that I posted in the fall. I'll link that here, and then I'm going to discard it from Instagram stories for the moment. Now, I'm going to pick it back up, so it's like we're adding a video to our new story, but I'm going to cover this video up with black. Watch this, so I take the pen feature, I click black down here to color, and you just hold your pen, there it goes, over the video and it covers the whole thing up. Now, that moving colorful video is behind this. So I'm going to take the pen feature again, and I'm going to make it really small, you see how I can move the size of the pen right here. Okay, and I'm going to hit the eraser this time, right? And using the eraser, I'm going to create a moving border, watch this. See how I want to do it, I'll use my hands. We're going to do just all kinds of stuff, right? We can make a star, we're going to hit undo. that's more like fireworks. We can maybe make the pen a little bigger, and write, so cool. If you all remember from the last video, I don't have the best handwriting. Sometimes, this might work better with your finger. But, you can create something fabulous, especially if you have better handwriting than me. Love it, right? And then you'd hit Done. And, you can just post this, right, by clicking here. Love that one.

Add a transparent overlay to photos

So now, I'm going to grab a photo, of me. There's me, in all my glory. And, I was like, you know, I don't, maybe I'm going to write something about myself, or I just don't need it my big ol' mug on the front of Instagram. So, I'd like to add a transparent overlay over this. I'm going to take the pen again. And, let's say I want a pink overlay, okay. Change the color of the pen to pink, and see the middle pen. There's five options. This middle one. We're going to click that, and I'm going to hold my pen, and, can you see? There's me, in all my glory. So then, I want to make this, I don't know, kind of cool, and, maybe, David Bowie like or something. Why does this remind me of David Bowie? So watch, you can also add a transparent cover using our period trick that we did earlier. So we're going to period and we're going to space, space, space, space, space, space space, space, and then we're going to period again, and we're going to invert, and this time I'm going to change the color to blue. See how we inverted up here with the A? I want you to hit it again. And look, it makes it transparent. It's kind of fun, right? I just put that blue over my eyes. And then we could do it again, with another color. Super fun, right? The fourth trick I want to show you is the Instagram's updated Boomerang feature. It's very cool.

New Boomerang Features

First, inside Instagram I am going to take boomerang video. Before, you would just post this. But, do you see up at the top, they've added this new infinity sign. Do you see this? I'm going to click that and it gives me boomerang options, you guys, I love it. I can click here to slow it down. This will be even cooler if the boomerang was cooler. The echo is really fun. It goes like backwards and forwards, can you see it moving across? if this video was with people it'd be cooler, and then, the duo, it just sort of stops in the middle, which is just another fun feature. I love that updated boomerang features.

New Layout Feature

All right, the next item I want to show you is right next to the boomerang. It is called layout. Have you checked out Instagram's new layout feature? So you just move over, gives you all kinds of layouts. You can add four photos, two photos, three photos, you can pick one up from your camera roll, or, you can take a photo, you see? So I'm going to take a picture my books, maybe my, paper clips. Here we go with the boomerang. You see, isn't that fun? You can pick up photos, right? From your camera roll. We can pick up my card my friend gave me, love that.

The New Arrow Pen

.All right, the sixth feature I want to show you is one of my favorites. When I am telling an Instagram story, I often like to point to an item in the story content. And to find an arrow, I usually have to use the GIF stickers, but, Instagram has made it even easier. So let's go to our Instagram stories, and I'm going to pull up a photo. I'm going to find one of my favorites. And, let's grab this party spread, here we go. Before, like I said, I had to pull an arrow from the GIF stickers, but now, you can just take the pen feature, and look at this. The pen that's the second from the left, is actually arrows. So I'm going to keep my pen white, and I'm going to, say I want to write, like, honey crisp apples are my favorite, and I wrote that up there and I wanted to point to them. I could just draw a line towards this apples. I love apples, in the photo. I'm going to reverse it, since there's a lot of color in this photo. I think it helps make it stand out. Boom, I love apples. How fun is that? Look, they just made the arrows, maybe I want to point to these tulips, I just go bam. Is that not the most fun? I love those arrows.

GIF Instagram sticker collections

The next Instagram feature I want to talk about, is I don't know if this is exactly new, but I've never told you about it before, and I just discovered them. So, let's take a photo, and, we're going to add a GIF to our stories. In my last Instagram video, I talked about how you can search the GIFies on Instagram to find a specific type of GIF. Like if I wanted the word, yes, I might search yes here, and lots of yeses, like that one, would come up. But there also fancy creators have added collections to Instagram stories. For instance, there's one called cherry, that's cute. So I'm going to type in cherry. It's C-H-X-R-R-Y. and look at the cute collection that she's made. Another one I really like, is called green datari. Look at that. You see all the white, isn't that fun? So I could add, I love coffee, you know, those. To find other Instagram giffy collections that you might like, you can go to Pinterest and search it up, as my 12 year old says, and you would search Instagram giffy sticker collections. Or, you could go to Etsy and even buy some fabulous ones. I also found a collection, and I don't think that these are necessarily by one creator, but I want to show you. I'm going to start over, I'm going to take a photo. If you type in speech bubbles, look at all those speech bubbles come up. That's super fun. If you have a person in one of your photos, and you want to be silly, like, what they're thinking about, you can put it in a speech bubble, isn't that cool?

New Fonts for Instagram

The last Instagram trick I want to show you today is changing your fonts on Instagram stories. Yes, we've got five pretty cool font choices. Remember when you're here and you can change them. Classic, modern, neon, typewriter, strong. But what if I want more than that? Well, you guys, you can get them in the app Store. we're going to download a font keyboard. This is what it looks like, you go to the app store, and you search up fonts. App looks like this. And then, it's going to walk you through how to add it to your iPhone, or your Android. So, I've already done that, I downloaded it, and it's super easy directions. I don't think I have to walk you through it. So, I'm going to click on this little globe down here, you see, and, I'm going to change my keyboard to fonts. And look, there, it changed right here, got all these choices. Use my finger. I like this outline one, you see? Meredith. Isn't that fun? And I can hit return, and let's say I want to change the font to something else. Look, there's all sorts of, the one with smiley faces on top is going to fun, they've got happy. Let's say, hi boo. So many great font choices. Love it