(Warning: Technophobic old lady post)
Following on from the Instagram workshop yesterday, which was full of useful information I’ll be trying out as soon as I have the time, I’ve been trying once again to get my head around Instagram Stories, which is a feature I have never used. The tutor was very clear about the benefits of using Stories to post about behind-the-scenes stuff, updates, news, etc. so I thought, clearly this is something I should try to do on my own Insta account - I was wondering whether any kind people here who use this feature regularly have any tips on what this feature is supposed to actually do and how you are supposed to actually use it to build engagement?
Because. I went to Insta on my phone this morning in a spare few minutes and clicked (something I never normally do) on some of those nice circular logos in ‘Stories’ at the top of my feed, just to see what sort of content some of the accounts I follow are posting there.
I’m sorry to report that I still don’t get the point. None of the things I saw induced me to engage with them.
Lots of them seemed to be using the same template (e.g. a magazine cover mockup with their own photo on it) and a (presumably clickable) message saying ‘customize this template with your own image’. I didn’t click.
Others had posted videos or graphics but after five seconds an advert popped up and obscured it. I didn’t click further. Five seconds? Seriously? I am a fast reader and even so it drove me bonkers that for most of the posts with writing on there was not time to read more than a fraction of it. Does this mean that if I’m going to post a graphic to Stories it needs to have no more than three words on it? And then on some other stories, if I did spend a few seconds longer I got another advert from Instagram saying ‘promote this post’ with a vertically stretched version of one of my own images and a link presumably wanting money from me to promote it, even though it looks awful. (No, I can’t get my head around the departure from square images either and was rather alarmed to hear that Folksy are about to make changes to image ratios too!)
And Stories disappear after a short while anyway, so having gone to all the effort to create content, it then vanishes, is that right? Mind you, most of what I saw in my admittedly short session this morning would be no great loss.
If anyone has any insights to share, they would be very welcome. This old dog is up for learning some new tricks but only if she can see what the trick is actually supposed to be in the first place!
You can save your stories in your highlights so they are there to be viewed later, not just on the day. Did they not mention that ? Quite important to know 
Thanks Joy, they may have mentioned that and I missed it - I need to watch the replay, I took loads of notes and I’m sure I missed quite a few important things!
I think I need to go and find some up-to-date Instagram tutorials too, one thing I did learn from the session is that Insta has changed radically since I first dabbled in it and that a lot of my information is out of date…
If I make a reel and then share it as a story I get a far better view figurer. As Folksy have no FB catalogue (Only their favourites) you cannot tag your Folksy products in posts or reels but you Can in a story by adding a Link button which goes directly to your listing. I’ll stick one on in a minute and give you the link to it so you can see.
Currently in lovely Honfleur on a very wet day so instead of exploring we are sitting in our cosy caravan on a super campsite with the heating on waiting for the rain to stop so we can venture out 
Thanks Joy, I haven’t used Reels either yet, lots to learn! And I didn’t know you could add a live link to a Story.
Hope it stops raining soon! It’s chucking it down here too if that makes you feel any better
hi, do you know where I can see the replay? I can’t find it thanks
Marco, I don’t think admin have posted it yet. It’ll show up on your Plus Account dashboard when they have: https://folksy.com/dashboard/plus-account/events - you’ll need to go to Events and scroll down to Past Events but it’s not there yet 
I havn’t seen it yet, will need to watch the replay, I’m not really sure what it’s for either and just put a new bear pic on it when I make one, to me it’s a duplicate of what I’m already putting on IG so it will be interesting to get new ideas from the replay.
If it’s for behind the scenes stuff, wip etc I would normally put that on my feed as I’m always struggling to find content to put on and the only way I can use IG every day or two is to keep popping images on of bears that have been on previously.
You mentioned Folksy are going to change the ratio of photos, hope they will still be square as IG uses square images so I crop everything to square, havn’t got time to do various formats for fb, pinterest etc they all get uploaded the same.
The webinar didn’t really focus on stories, it was just a quick mention because it was already an hour over with all the other stuff it included.
I feel like stories are probably most helpful for people who have a very curated page and don’t like to post things there that don’t fit their brand, because it gives them a place where they can share that content without worrying about the look of their page.
There are other benefits too though, such as what you can do with stickers. Like already mentioned, there’s a link sticker, so if you just posted about a new listing, you can then share that post to your story (by clicking the paper plane icon under the post and selecting ‘add to story’) and then put a clickable link directly to the listing page.
Stories are only active for 24 hours, but as mentioned you can add them to a highlight and then they’ll remain on your profile (not all stickers continue to work in the highlight, but links do).
That’s also how you can share other people’s content on Instagram, for example if someone shares one of your items in their Folksy Friday post, you can click the paper plane icon to share it to your story (although you can only share other people’s stories if they’ve tagged you in that story).
There are also other things you can do with stickers, such as add polls to ask people their preference (tea spoons or dessert spoons?), add a question sticker where they can type their answer (what animal should I paint next?) or add a countdown (new product launches in 24 hours).
They can also be helpful if you just want to quickly say something and don’t have a nice photo to go with it, or if it’s only relevant for such a short time you don’t want it on your grid.
If a story has quite a bit of text on it, just press your screen and it pauses the story for as long as your finger is holding it.
@Bearlescent The webinar went into how Instagram is moving away from square images, but don’t panic about Folksy images! As Camilla said in the webinar, the mention of Folksy starting to use some taller images wasn’t about changes to your shop front or anything like that, but a new feature where images will be displayed at the ratio you uploaded (so if your photos are square they’ll show square, but if you uploaded a tall image or a wide image, they will display that way without cropping).
Yes but IG doesn’t use square images (which is why the preview they keep showing me looks so rubbish, the spoons are all stretched out of shape), they use 4:5 for posts and 9:16 for reels and stories. Here’s hoping that when Folksy changes them they go for something that’s compatible. I’m still not sure how to make my Folksy Friday boards for IG now, I’ve always just gone for square, it’s going to be more work if not all the photos I borrow from Folksy are going to be square any more as you can bet your boots not everyone will change all or even any of their photos especially if they have multiple pages of listings…
But that is another whole can of worms for another time!
Thanks Kim, that’s very helpful info about Stories, I clearly have a lot to learn and will be playing with some of those features later! That’s very reassuring about the photo shapes on Folksy too, I just heard ‘changes to the shape of images’ and panicked!
First of all I made a reel. As my red parrot is in Folksy favourites I selected pictures of lots of my bits creations including the parrot and tagged Folksy And selected product, folksy and searched for parrot. That created the listing link which you can bottom left on the photos. If you click it goes to my red parrot listing (the link icon is under the bird eating the worm 
)
Nb only works for things in Folksy favourites so not very useful really but thought I would demo it for you anyway. .
Thanks so much Joy! (Has it stopped raining for you yet?) The bird eating the worm is priceless. I can’t see a link anywhere though, there is a ‘tags’ icon but that’s all. Is that because I’m viewing on a desktop at the moment? Do links only show on a mobile device?
Once I had a reel published (took ages as bad signal here on the campsite hence my delay in replying 
). … I hit the share button . The ‘arrow’ . Right hand of the three icons at the bottom ( like comment share)… and selected Add to Story. Then I added a few tweaks and especially a link button. This asks for two things:
The link URL you want and a title for it. .
I used the link to all my birds and animal collection. You can also add a pointer gif to show where to click to use the link.
Use the smiley face ins square icon top right to find all the link and gif options.
Hope this helps.
This is my Story.
https://www.instagram.com/stories/joysofglass/3450503264145172762?igsh=YTVtbHJqeXl1eWR4
Only there today, Thursday but I can then save it in my highlights.
Highlight button is at the bottom of the story so I clicked it and saved in my Folksy folder.
Ps can’t remember how I created those highlight folders and my phone is about to go flat …found it …
BRILLIANT I can see the link now! Thank you for the explanation, that is really helpful 
I did my first reel, and a story, the other day. I’ll be honest, I rarely click on anyone’s story, so haven’t so far felt compelled to make any of my own. It was such a faff I can’t see me doing it again tbh. Instagram’s really geared up for smartphone users through the app, half the functions don’t work on desktop - like adding music to reels. I didn’t want a silent video, or one with the original sound (all you can hear in it is nearby demolition work, not really the vibe I was going for!), so I had to dig out my old sim-less smartphone and install the app. I only did it because I’d already gone to the effort of recording the clip, but I’m not going back to smartphone use so won’t be bothering again. I’m afraid I can’t shake my dislike of Instagram and hate spending time on there, so I’m putting more effort into understanding Pinterest. I enjoy Pinterest, but can’t fathom how it’s actually supposed to work!
(PS, for some reason I thought you were a man @LooneySpoons, I have no idea why!!)
@TheHermitsBothy It’s the swearing and the metalwork I expect, the guys all collect round my stall at craft fairs!
Thanks for the tip about music not working on desktop, I tend to do most of my social media on my desktop so will have to bite the bullet and start doing Insta stuff on my phone I guess 
I do all my IG on my android phone. I use my laptop for everything else as I touch type And my finger ends are not delicate enough for phone keys. Make multiple typos .
As my photos are all on laptop I usually wizz them across via FB messenger to my husband’s account and download them from there.
A faff but I get more interaction from IG than FB and some sillier reels have done quite well.
Thank you @konyskiw, all really good info there, is it possible for me to copy this to refer back to or save it somewhere on my desktop as I’m away next week and by the time I get back I will have forgotten all of this.
I do actually share other sellers posts to my story. I didnt know you could just use text without an image so I am looking forward to watching the replay of yesterdays webinar. I would find it really useful to use without an image as I often pop by with a hello etc but then have to put a pic of an older bear with it.
Phew about the images on Folksy, I get confused easily nowadays so it’s better if i can leave them alone 
and don’t need to change anything, but being able to use any format sounds really good as well.
Oh I thought IG was all square format, if I do a collage in adobe it shows instagram as square so I make all my images square and none of them look stretched or out of shape, how strange.
I never thought about making the boards with none square format photos…perhaps i won’t think that far ahead yet but yes it may make it more difficult mmm. When I add a photo to an iG story I just make my square image smaller to fit within the space, it looks ok to me from my end…I do it all square