Around 500 million people use the story function on Instagram every day. With so many users and content, it’s hard to stand out from the crowd. Even spectacular and carefully planned content does not always turn out to be an eye-catcher. Still, giving up is not a solution – Instagram Stories are too powerful a marketing tool to neglect. To get more attention, marketers, bloggers, and story producers often use stickers. Instagram makes this available free of charge. Alternatively, they can be found and imported from other sources – free of charge or for a small fee.
But it shouldn’t just be about choosing particularly unusual, colorful, or eye-catching stickers. At best, they form a coherent entity with your brand’s aesthetic. You can find out here how to proceed when looking for the right stickers.
How to use Instagram stickers correctly
Instagram and other providers don’t just provide you with one form of a sticker. Some stickers come without text, others consist of text and an image. Because the stickers are transparent, they overlay your Instagram story over the background. There are many different categories that users and marketers can choose from.
Note the following points:
1. What do you want your viewers to think about and how do they benefit from the story? If you want users to engage more intensively with your brand, you can, for example, use a sticker that encourages interaction.
2. Ultimately, you should always focus on your brand. Stickers that don’t match your brand will only help you to a limited extent. A reputable company probably shouldn’t draw attention to themselves with cat GIF stickers.
3. Trial and error or the willingness to experiment are required. Be creative and feel free to search a little longer for the right option. Observe how successful each story is. If one option doesn’t work, use a different sticker for the next story.
Tip
With Instagram Insights, you’ll be able to track the success of your stories and even your stickers. This includes, for example, views, reach, profile visitors after viewing the story, users who left early, and much more. Under “Sticker Taps” you get an insight into how many viewers have interacted with your stickers.
This is how you find beautiful and unusual Instagram stickers
However, you first have to look for the right stickers for your company and your campaign. You consider colors and fonts that are aesthetically based on your brand or company. You won’t find them in the first place. Various keywords in the app help you to find alternative stickers in different fonts. Just open the app and start creating a story.
Fiverr, Giphy, or Etsy: Upload alternate sticker sources or your stickers
If you don’t find the right sticker for your purposes in Instagram’s selection, you should use alternatives. You can find out which ones are suitable for this below.
Outsource design or buy stickers
One option is to outsource the design of your stickers to professionals. With just a few clicks on digital marketplaces like Fiverr, you’re guaranteed to find someone who can make stickers just the way you like them.
You can get away a little cheaper if you buy sticker packs on portals like Etsy or Ideasloft.com. You can download the corresponding file to your computer after purchase. This is usually in a ZIP format, which you can then unzip.
Upload stickers to Giphy
To be able to use the stickers after downloading, you have to save the corresponding file somewhere again so that Instagram can find it. The same applies if you trust yourself to do the design work and want to create individual stickers with self-created fonts for your brand. The latter can be done with Photoshop or other image editing programs, for example.
If you want to make your brand-specific stickers better known, you should use the Giphy platform. The benefit is that other Instagram users will share your creations and spread the word about your brand.
Follow the guide below to upload stickers based on GIFs so you can later find them on Instagram
Step 1
Open Giphy and create an account for your brand or company. Your username must match the company name. The email address should include your company’s domain name. Under Channel Settings, you must also describe your brand, as well as your website and social media accounts.
You can then apply to a Giphy Brand Channel. It may take some time for the application to be approved. Giphy does not provide any more precise information in this regard.
Step 2
Create your individual GIF stickers, for example via Photoshop. If you want to upload a sticker to Giphy, it must be at least 20 percent transparent. In this way, the beautiful background of your Insta story remains recognizable. If your sticker does not meet this minimum level of transparency when uploaded to Giphy, your creation will not qualify for the portal.
After uploading, you need to tag your sticker with five to ten relevant keywords or tags. This will help you later to find the stickers faster on Instagram.
Step 3
Most of the time it will take some time before Giphy approves the sticker and you can try it. If the sticker doesn’t appear at all, contact the Giphy community.
Upload Instagram stickers directly
You don’t necessarily have to take the detour via Giphy. Include your stickers in your next story directly from your smartphone.
It is best to copy the corresponding files to a folder on your mobile device so that you can find them later. Depending on whether you are using an iPhone or an Android device, there are different procedures:
Android
1. Download the Swiftkey keyboard app and add it to your regular keyboard.
2. Open the Instagram app and create a story.
3. Select “Aa”.
4. Now use the emojis on the Swiftkey keyboard.
5. The PIN icon at the bottom right takes you to the camera icon, which you have to select. A gallery will now open. Choose a suitable sticker from it.
iOS
1. Create an Instagram Story.
2. Open the Photos app and choose the right sticker.
3. After tapping the share icon, you need to select the “Copy Photo” menu item.
4. Open the Instagram app again. If you can’t find the sticker you copied in the bottom left, tap “Aa” and then paste the sticker manually.
5. Adjust the size or orientation of the sticker. You can drag it larger or smaller with two fingers, rotate it in different ways, or flip it with a quick finger tap.
Conclusion
Decorating Instagram Stories with stickers is an art in itself: you can increase your reach, encourage engagement of your audience, convey a certain atmosphere or determine the mood of your audience. In addition, they are eye-catcher that (usually) generates attention free of charge or motivates a certain action.
Instagram’s sticker selection is now quite large. With the right search terms, you can find unusual stickers in the app that go beyond the usual variations in a wide variety of colors, shapes, and fonts. However, an independent market has also developed around small decorations, where you can buy individualized sticker products. Even your creations and their further distribution are allowed if they comply with certain rules.