Instagram Stickers: What they are, how to use them, and why to use them.
A great way to get engagement on Instagram stories is by using stickers. With the most recent update, there are so many different options that any account can utilize. These fun and dynamic elements can be used on both image and video stories. Some are animated, some are clickable, and others allow users to interact with your account and story directly.
Quiz Sticker
Goal: Engagement
This sticker is a simple way to engage your audience by asking a multiple-choice question. This can be used to quiz your audience, collect feedback, and dig deeper into your audience’s interests.
Questions Sticker
Goal: Engagement
This sticker lets your audience take control here as they get to ask you the questions (or leave answers to your question). This is a good way to show that there is a human behind your screen and engage with your audience in real-time and have conversations.
Poll Sticker
Goal: Engagement
Audiences can take direct action here by responding to your poll question by choosing one of the options you’ve provided. This gives real-time results. Use them to tease new product launches, collect feedback on your products, get new ideas or entertain your followers.
Emoji Sliders
Goal: Engagement
This lets you ask the questions and show real-time results as your viewers “vote”. Compared to a poll sticker, here the vote is where the user drags the emoji slider to. Emoji sliders can be used to ask fun questions that compel people to engage with you or brands can use this sticker to gauge audience preference.
Frame
Goal: Design & Engagement
Pick an image from your camera roll and share it to your story with a Polaroid-style frame. You can also add a caption. The user will have to gently shake their screen to “reveal” the image you have posted, which is a great way to stop people from scrolling and have them take action on your account, in this case, shaking their phone.
Notify
Goal: Engagement
Allows viewers to easily click to get notifications when your account posts new content.
Countdown Sticker
Goal: Awareness & drive traffic
Perfect for an upcoming product release, event, or sale. Viewers can subscribe to the countdown “event” so they will be sent a reminder when the countdown is over.
Location Sticker
Goal: Awareness & drive traffic to a physical location
When you use a location sticker, it puts your Story in an explore feed for that location or venue and allows users to click through to see more about the location.
Bonus: Use the location sticker to promote your brand’s multiple locations. For example, if you have four stores across the country, you can add the location tag to inform your audience about each of your stores.
Hashtag Sticker
Goal: Awareness
When you use the hashtag sticker, it adds the Story to the explore feed of the hashtag used. This helps increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your Story.
Before you add any hashtags to your Story, do your research so that your Story doesn’t go unseen.
Mention Sticker
Goal: Awareness (and collaborators/ other brands)
This allows you to tag other Instagram accounts like your followers or other business accounts. This sticker can be used to build your community, humanize your brand by showing who you work with behind the scenes, and bring attention to marketing campaigns or initiatives.
Link Sticker
Goal: Marketing campaign specific & drive website traffic
This is a new sticker that replaces the original “swipe-up” feature Instagram used to have for users with over 10K followers. Now, anyone can use this link sticker. This allows you to direct people to your website or any website.
Add Yours Sticker
Goal: Marketing campaign-specific
This essentially creates a public thread in stories. Users can now respond to your Stories with their own version based on the prompt or topic you shared. It’s a great way to build community and reach a new audience.
Photo
Goal: Upgrade your Design
Add another image from your camera roll and cut it out like a scrapbook to match your design. You can add more than one image with this sticker, you just have to add each image as an individual sticker.
GIF
Goal: Upgrade your Design
Search and add GIFs to your design. Use keywords to find what you are looking for. You can add more than one GIF with this sticker, you just have to add each GIF individually.
Add Yours Templates
Goal: Increase Engagement and Marketing campaign-specific
Write a prompt, post a photo that matches, add any copy or images you want, and see what others share to the same prompt.
Get Orders and Food Orders
Goal: Conversions
Let users place orders through your story.
Add Yours Music
Goal: Awareness and engagement
Add music to this prompt and people can see you created it.
Donations
Goal: Conversions and awareness
Raise donations for a cause. Users can donate through this sticker to help your cause or a cause you are supporting.
Music
Goal: Upgrade your Design
Add available music to your story.
Emoji Scale
Goal: Engagement
Let people give a scaled rating with an emoji of your choice. You can pick from any of the emoji options and users just swipe the emoji to tell you their rating.
Reveal
Goal: Engagement
The story is blurred. Users can see the blurred image after they message you. This encourages users to directly engage with you in order to see what’s behind the blur.
Product
Goal: Conversions
Link to items in your Instagram shop so people can shop directly.
New AI Stickers
A.I. Backdrop
The A.I. Backdrop tool allows you to replace portions of your Story image with your own prompts. Let’s say I upload a picture holding a beaded handbag: I could use the A.I. backdrop tool to replace the background of the image with a scene of a sunny beach, using a prompt. This is essentially an easy and fun way to place your products or your team members in any setting you’d like, giving you a personalized stock-image feeling with a fun twist!
TIP: Use this tool to help place the product in a realistic environment, to help the customer imagine it in their own lives. Whether that product will be heading to the beach, or placed on a shelf, you can customize your product images to look more realistic!
A.I. Stickers
This feature is a great way to create personalized stickers for your Stories to help create unique content that also uses a new feature. You can combine any number of words to create personalized icons to place on your Story, essentially like GIFs that no one else has used.