Instagram lets you share photos and videos with your followers that will be available online for 24 hours in the form of stories. You can simply shoot an image or video; apply various filters; add stickers, location, hashtags, link, and text; @mention other instagram users; and much more to customize it for your needs.

 

Once published, stories are indicated by a gradient color around your profile picture. It will also be displayed for all your followers at the top of the home screen. 

If your account is private, only your followers can view the stories that are published. Stories published in an Instagram business or creator accounts can be viewed by anyone. You can see the number of views, the list of all the users who viewed the story, the total number of impressions, and other detailed analytics about how your audience interacts with your stories.

 

Images published as stories will be displayed for five seconds and videos will be 15 seconds long. You can save the stories to be available in your profile by adding them as highlights.

Stories act as a powerful tool in helping your audience understand more about your brand. You can showcase the types of products or services that you offer, or offer a glimpse of what goes on behind the curtains, which helps your audience develop a personal connection with your brand and gain their trust.

Stories can be of many types, from a simple slideshow of images or a video to creating polls, Instagram story comes loaded with a variety of options. You can add your business location to the story, @mention another user to collaborate, gather questions, create a poll or a quiz, add relevant hashtags or gifs, share the link to your website or an event, and a lot more. The stories can be personalized to increase engagement with your audience, which helps them get a good understanding about your business.

Although the lifetime of a story is 24 hours, certain stories might contain information that can be valid for a long period of time. For example, a restaurant menu, list of tour packages offered, snapshots from an event, FAQs, and so on. In such cases, you can create highlights and group relevant stories together, allowing your audience to revisit them from your profile.