It's impossible to talk about Instagram without mentioning Stories. The application’s feed has become less fun to scroll through… Instagram’s new algorithm confuses the chronological order and the sponsored advertisements are totally flooding the feed. As I’ve said in the past – the Instagram feed has become a lot more Facebooky… This is precisely the reason why Stories are receiving more action than the feed. True, they are not as authentic as they were at first, but there is no doubt that a story has a certain charm that draws our attention to bits of people’s lives, people who, in reality, most of the time we don’t even know.
Many Instagrammers use Stories to market their products, give the audience a behind-the-scenes look at the business and also add links to their website. The algorithm takes into account all of the interaction your stories receive, like private messages following a story, or when someone chooses to send your story to another user. It’s simple – the more your stories will be more interesting, the more users will interact with or via your stories, and the chance your posts will appear on their feed will increase.
The bottom line is that using stories is essential to increasing your instagram account’s exposure online. So, besides understanding the effect the algorithm has on your feed and ways to overcome the decrease in organic exposure, it is best to use Stories as often as possible.
One question that comes up over and over again is how do I edit my stories, and so I decided to share with you my seven favorite apps to do so.
Shall we begin?.. 🙂
Lightroom CC
All of my images are edited with Adobe Lightroom, either on the computer program or the program’s app. The program makes every photo look amazing thanks to the changes it can apply in the photo’s lighting and ambiance, and with this help you can create colorful and uniform appearance for different images. Lightroom CC is a free, downloadable app, although its many features are available to those who have paid. In my opinion additional features, like editing Raw files and synchronising your computer, are essential to using the app, which is why I use the premium option. A monthly subscription that includes Lightroom and Photoshop can be purchased on the Adobe CC website for a great price that includes all updates
8mm Vintage Camera
If you are a vintage fan, this is the app for you. With this app you can add vintage effects to add a cool, retro look to any video on your mobile phone. Or, if you prefer, you can shoot the films directly using the app and they will automatically be saved to your photo library.
The app has two types of effects – lens and film, while each type has a number of options to play around with. After selecting your effect of choice, you can choose the audio. There is an option to record with no sound at all, with the original scene’s sound, or with the sound of an old camera 🙂 The different effects can be changed around during filming itself, but in my opinion that is a pretty unnecessary feature.
Hype Type
A sweet and easy to use app that lets you add animated text and music to photos and videos.
The app’s home screen is a camera, but if you prefer to enhance an image or video you’ve already taken from your photo library, drag the screen up and select a video or picture from the gallery. The you can choose to add any text, select for it colors and animation from the available options, and find a song to play in the background from the app’s great selection of songs.
Vigo Video
Another great and easy-to-use app that lets you create videos from photos, edit regular videos, or create a video that combines the two. The app has a variety of useful tools like cutting videos, adding text and music, changing video speed, effects, and special filters.
Unfold
This is one of my favorite apps lately! The app allows you to create special stories by using templates with a clean, elegant look.
The free version of this app has 25 light templates, along with 5 very nice looking fonts, that images and videos can be incorporated into from your media library, If it’s a darker look you are looking for, you will have to pay and upgrade to the premium version in order to receive an additional 30 dark templates.
KiraKira+
If you would like your story to be all glamorous and extra sparkly, this is the app you’ve been waiting for 🙂
The work “Kira” in Japanese means sparkly – which is exactly what this app will do to your videos – instant glam in the click of a button.
You can shoot directly via the app, or, alternatively, select and image or a video from your media library and add three different levels of sparkle.
CutStory
You know that feeling when you’ve taken a great video and want to share it on Stories, but you discover that it’s longer than the 15 seconds the app allows for, and you have no choice but to give it up? Or, you want to share an amusing anecdote with your followers but the video keeps getting stuck?
Well, this app is designed for these situations exactly!
In the click of a button, the app cuts your videos into short bits, perfect for Stories, and if that’s not enough, you can also easily put together short clips made from photos in your media library.
This app is also free to download, but if you want to get rid of the stamp that the app leaves on your videos after editing, you'll have to upgrade to the premium version. {The truth is, when it comes to this app it’s not so bad, because the stamp is small and doesn’t stand out, and can be covered by a GIF, location sticker, or a drawing 😉 }
What do you think about editing Instagram Stories? Do you prefer a story that is more authentic, or do you like watching edited ones?
Which apps do you use to edit your stories?
Leave me a comment below! 🙂
3 Responses
There are great apps. Thanks for sharing
You’re welcomed babe??
this app is so good and many are using this app