Introduction
When sharing your photos and videos on Instagram, you want to make sure they look their best. One of the best ways to achieve this is by knowing the optimal Instagram story dimensions, aspect ratio and sizes.
If you want perfect Instagram stories, it’s important to use the correct Instagram story dimensions, which are 1080 pixels wide and have an aspect ratio of 9:16.
Be mindful of the size of your photos for Instagram too – they should be no larger than 30mb in size. If you upload a story video or image that’s too big, Instagram will crop it, which can result in a lower quality image or video.
By following these guidelines, you can ensure your Instagram stories look their best, catching the attention of your followers and keeping them engaged.
so, let’s get started!
What Are Instagram Stories?
Instagram Stories is a feature that allows you to share all your moments with the world. You can post pictures and videos, and decorate them with stickers, words, GIFs, and more, and they’ll disappear after 24 hours.
With this feature, you can be as creative as you want and show the world everything that’s going on in your life!
Apart from this, you should also keep an eye out for stories at the top of your feed – they could come from people you follow, like your closest friends or favorite accounts.
If their profile photo has a colored ring around it, there’s something new to check out! Just tap on their profile photo and you can directly like, or react to their story.
Instagram Stories Daily Active Users
Instagram Stories is quickly becoming one of the most popular social media platforms. With more than 500 million people interacting with it every single day, it has grown faster than Snapchat did in its first six years.
That’s an impressive 11.01% of all active internet users around the world using Instagram on a daily basis. If you want to tap into a huge audience, make sure to get familiar with Instagram Stories and use it to your advantage.
What Is the Ideal Instagram Story Size and Dimensions?
The ideal size for an Instagram Story is 1080 x 1920 pixels, with a 9:16 aspect ratio. This fits perfectly on the vertical screens of smartphones.
Your content doesn’t have to be exactly this size.
As long as it has a 9:16 aspect ratio – Instagram will automatically adjust your content to fit these dimensions.
A 9:16 aspect ratio is used in several resolutions, such as 720 x 1280 pixels, 1440 x 2560 pixels, and 2160 x 3840 pixels.
Why Should You Adhere to The Right Instagram Stories Dimensions?
It’s important to use the correct size for photos and videos when adding them to your Instagram stories. Otherwise, quality and important details might be lost due to cropping or zooming.
To make sure your content looks its best and you don’t miss any crucial details, you should always stick to the right Instagram story dimensions.
Here are the reasons stating why you should stick to the instagram story dimensions safe zone.
1. All the Essential Details Are Visible
Make sure your IG story looks good and includes all the important details so people can see them. Make sure it’s the right size and that everything important, like calls to action, links, polls, profile mentions, etc. can be seen.
2. Content Looks Professional
Adding visuals to your content will make it look more professional and of higher quality. Having the right dimensions for videos and photos means that important details won’t be cut off or overlooked.
It also helps build a great impression of your brand as viewers will see that you take your business seriously. Using an Instagram story template can give your profile a polished and consistent look.
3. Effectively Communicate Your Message
A picture or video with the correct dimensions and the right content can help you communicate your message effectively to the target audience. This can increase engagement and make it more likely for your content to go viral.
Having a clear, high-quality image or video is key to reaching the desired audience and getting them to take action on your message.
What Are Safe Zones when Creating Instagram Stories?
When creating Instagram Stories, it’s important to pay attention to the spacing within your content. Areas that aren’t covered by the user interface elements or cut off from view are known as ‘safe zones’.
To ensure that your stickers and text overlays are seen, place them in these safe zones. The upper portion of an Instagram Story is typically covered by the creator’s username and a few buttons, so make sure to consider this when designing.
Pay attention to the guidelines in the Instagram story editor to identify which areas are safe to use.
Safe zone is the area marked with a white line and blue when elements are snapped to it. There are also grid lines at the sides and bottom of the safe zone.
Although it’s possible to push stickers and text outside the safe zone, they might become hidden behind Instagram’s interface elements and not be visible to your audience.
This could cause problems if you add interactive stickers like polls, quizzes and emoji sliders.
Instagram Story Ideas & Size Tips
1. Upload High-Quality Content
When adding content to Instagram, make sure that it is of very high quality first. This will help preserve the look and feel of your images when they are compressed by the platform.
Resolution should be at least 72 pixels per inch (ppi) and photos should have a minimum resolution of 1080p for best results. Otherwise, your image will become blurry and “stretched” when the platform scales it up.
When looking for content, like stock photos and images received through Bluetooth, keep this in mind. To preserve image quality, try using tools that can increase the size of images without sacrificing too much of their quality.
2. Improve Your Content Quality with Photo Editing Apps
Photo editing apps are useful when creating stories on Instagram. They let you customize your pictures so they meet the right size and look the best they can.
Popular options for editing photos include cropping, adjusting colors, and applying filters.
i) Embed Social
Embed Social is an innovative tool that lets you turn your Instagram Stories into shoppable content. Add Calls-To-Action (CTAs) and create embeddable code for your website, with free and paid plans available.
With this easy to use platform, anyone can quickly get their stories and products out there.
ii) Easil
Easil is an online platform that offers templates to help you create beautiful, eye-catching content for Instagram Stories. Easil has a range of templates to choose from, including single images and multiple cards.
Depending on your needs, you can access Easil’s templates for free or as part of a paid subscription.
iii) Adobe Spark
Adobe Spark is a powerful tool that makes it easy to design graphics and videos for Instagram Stories. With its wide selection of fonts and images, you have plenty of possibilities to create unique content.
Plus, you can choose between free and premium plans depending on your needs.
iv) Canva
Canva is an ideal platform for creating custom visuals for your Instagram Stories. It has templates designed to fit Instagram’s size requirements, and offers both free and paid options to choose from.
With Canva, you have flexibility and control over the design of your posts, allowing you to create captivating stories with relative ease.
v) Lumen5
Lumen5 is a software that helps you create videos for Instagram Stories quickly and easily. When you create your video, you can choose the appropriate dimensions for the platform.
Lumen5 offers both free and paid plans, so you can find the best option to suit your needs.
With these tools, you can customize your images or videos according to your specifications. You can upload high-quality pictures taken with a professional camera, or add text and graphics to your content.
Once you’re done, you can use the same tools to complete the editing process.
3. Alter Your Camera’s Aspect Ratio
To make sharing photos to Instagram Stories easier, you can adjust your smartphone’s camera settings to the aspect ratio of 9:16. This way you won’t have to crop or resize pictures before they are posted.
Android and iOS users can both quickly change the aspect ratio setting in their camera apps.
Let’s understand this with the help of an example. The default camera setting on your iPhone uses the 4:3 aspect ratio. To switch it to the 16:9 aspect ratio, simply tap the up/down arrow at the top of the screen and select ‘4:3’ in the menu bar.
This is the same as a 9:16 aspect ratio in terms of orientation (9:16 being vertical, and 16:9 being horizontal). After that, all you need to do is select ‘16:9’ and you’re done!
4. Post Vertical Content
When posting on Instagram Stories, try to use content that is vertical. This means that the photo or video should be taller than it is wide. If the content isn’t suited for a vertical orientation, post it as a normal post instead.
5. Make Sure Your Content Is Under 30 Mb in File Size
If your files are too large, Instagram won’t accept them. Try to keep your photos and videos under 30 megabytes – this should give you enough space to upload high-quality images.
If the quality doesn’t look right, try fixing it so it meets Instagram’s standards.
What if Your Story Is Still Blurry?
If your Instagram story looks blurry or grainy even though everything is correct, here are some tips to help:
1. Get It Checked by A 2nd Person
If your story doesn’t seem to look quite right on your device, it might be an issue with your internet connection or operating system.
To make sure, ask someone else to check the same story on their device. If the story looks fine to them, then there probably isn’t a problem with your story itself.
2. Check the Data Saver Settings
If you’re having trouble viewing your Instagram stories in HD, the cause might be that you have Data Saver enabled. This feature stops videos from loading unless you specifically play them, which helps reduce data usage.
If you have a strong internet connection, it’s best to turn off Data Saver for better video quality.
3. Compare Your Phone and Instagram Cameras
Comparing your phone and Instagram cameras can help you identify any issues with the video or image quality. To do this, take the same photos or videos using each camera and see if there is a difference in quality.
This can help you understand if the issue is with the compression settings of Instagram or the camera itself.
Killer Instagram Story Ideas and Tricks
Creating killer Instagram stories is essential to attract and engage with your audience. When it comes to Instagram, there are many great ways to showcase your creativity through Story Highlights, Instagram reels, and content on instagram app.
It’s important to keep in mind ideal Instagram story dimensions and sizes to ensure your stories don’t get cropped or distorted. Additionally, Instagram will crop your story to make it fit, so make sure to preview and adjust accordingly.
To make your stories even more visually appealing, use tricks such as adding music, creating polls, or using interactive stickers.
By taking advantage of these tips and tricks, your Instagram stories will be sure to stand out and capture your audience’s attention.
1. Keep the Instagram Story Short & Sweet
Keep your Instagram stories short and to the point. You only have 15 seconds to capture your audience’s attention, so make sure you can get your message across quickly. Stick to one main idea and make sure it is communicated in an informative manner.
2. Use Poll and Questions Stickers in Story Image
Ask your followers questions or poll them with Instagram Stories! To do it, just create a Story and add the “Question”, “Poll” or “Quiz” sticker. Then, write your question and answer choices for polls and quizzes.
Are you looking for new questions to ask your followers on Instagram Stories? It’s important to come up with creative, interesting ideas that will help you learn more about your customers and brand.
For example: What do you not like about our product? If you ran the company, what changes would you make? Who is your favorite Instagram influencer?
How would you prefer us to keep in touch with you? Then, show two pictures side by side and let people choose one they like best.
3. Evade Excessive Text in Your Instagram Story Image
When posting on social media, make sure to use a short and snappy caption for your picture or video. Create content that is attention-grabbing and valuable to your audience. Avoid using too much text.
4. Create Photo Dump Stories & Videos
Creating photo dump stories is a quick and easy way to share photos of your company culture with your followers. Photo dumps can be posted as regular posts or Instagram Stories, and give your audience an insight into your business.
To create photo dump stories, simply gather up any leftover photos you have on your computer or online media library and compile them into an engaging story.
If you want to add multiple photos to your story, you can select up to 10 images when “selecting” a photo.
You can also use the “Gallery” sticker to include another image on top of your Story or create a collage with multiple photos by tapping the “Layout” button. Other apps are available to help you build your collage before importing it into Instagram.
5. Avoid Using Irrelevant Hashtags
Using hashtags on Instagram Stories is a great way to make sure your content can be found by more people. However, it’s important to avoid using too many hashtags since this will make your story look cluttered.
When adding hashtags to your stories, be sure to only include relevant ones that will help people discover your content.
6. Share Reels and Feed Posts as Stories
You can show your Reels and feed posts in Stories to make sure more people can see them. When you share a Reel as a Story, people can watch a shortened version or tap “View Reel” to watch the full version.
You should also use Story features – like polls and link stickers – to increase interactions. Do this with your own content or content from other popular Instagram users.
Conclusion
Thus, it is essential to fit the Instagram Story dimensions properly to ensure that your story images or videos are displayed correctly on the platform.
You should always resize your images to fit the optimal aspect ratio of 9:16, which is ideal for Instagram. You can include your stories in your Instagram accounts and take advantage of features such as swipe up on a story to link it to your website or blog.
Instagram accepts different aspect ratios, but it’s recommended to use the optimal aspect ratio for a single story to avoid image distortion.
Be aware that the Instagram platform is continuously changing, so being aware of the current optimal Instagram story size and aspect ratio is crucial to achieve better engagement with your followers.
Good Luck!
