Instagram introduced their own Snapchat competitor yesterday called Instagram Stories and it’s already taking off. If you’re still struggling to figure it out, we’ve put together a little tutorial on how to use it.
After Facebook’s failed attempt to acquire, Mark Zuckerberg have stopped at nothing to bring the same product to the market. Instagram Stories basically does the same thing as Snapchat, and it’s great that they have kept it off the user’s feed because that would be annoying.
So how do you use Instagram Stories?
You will first need to update your Instagram app if you haven’t already, then you will see an updated interface with a little “plus” sign and all the people you follow with new stories. If you can see that, then you’re ready to go:
Creating a new Story
To add a new story, tap on the plus button on the top left-hand side of your home screen or swipe left in your Feed.
Tap the circle button at the bottom of the screen to share a photo or tap and hold to record a video – you can also upload photos or videos by swiping down on the screen and choose your videos or photos.
You can activate flash using the lightning bolt symbol on the bottom left corner and switch camera using the button to the right of the record button.
You can add text or drawing once you’ve recorded your video or snapped a photo, just hit the pen icon. There’re three types of pens, the third one makes your sketch look like a neon sign.
Tap Done to save your story and tap the checkmark button to share your story with your followers.
Come back after a little while and you’ll be able to see how many people watched it and who they are also.
If you go deeper into the menu with who viewed your stories, you get three options, one to save your story, one to post as an actual Instagram post and the last one to delete it.
How do I see my friends’ stories?
To see your Instagram Stories from the people you follow, you just tap on their thumbnails to begin. You can tap on one person, then scroll through to everyone else’s stories.
Around each person’s thumbnail, you will see a colourful circle if they have something new and Instagram has made it so it’s in order of who’s got new stories. Just like Snapchat, you just tap to continue the story.
How about my privacy? I don’t want everyone to see my Story
In the settings option which you can access by going into where you can view who’s viewed your story or in your normal settings options, you can hide Story from anyone you want and you can also allow either everyone or only the people you follow to message reply to your stories.
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