- One of my favorite places to express myself online
is Instagram.
Today, I wanna talk about what I do,
the great lengths I go to to make sure
that my Instagram Stories pop.
(lively music)
Good morning, good life.
Welcome back to AmyTV where we come together
to help you go after the life you want.
I'm very excited to be talking
about Instagram Stories today.
It is literally one of my favorite places
to hang out online.
I do not do a lot of Instagram scrolling.
I definitely spend time checking my DMs,
replying to people, liking some photos,
but I don't spend a lot of time consuming
as much as I like to create.
And I think there's a lot of other people
out there that feel the same way
and I think it's just such an inspirational way
to actually spend time on social media
is create something beautiful to share with the world.
In between these videos or podcasts or blog posts,
Instagram Stories is really where I like to create,
to continue the conversation and to be able
to real-time update my community.
So because of this, I get a lot of questions about
how I create my Instagram Story graphics.
If you wanna see what this looks like,
you can follow me @schmittastic.
There's also a lot of other Instagram goodness
happening over @detailspodcast and @Galuw.
So check that out as well.
I have a lot of different tricks up my sleeve
when it comes to Instagram Stories.
I work with a designer for some of the graphics,
but I also do a lot of stuff on my own,
and the reason for that is it is so important
that I keep that story alive.
It dies after 24 hours so it's so important
for me to have like 10 to 15 segments a day
so I know that there's always something interesting
to look at for my community.
But that's the main thing,
It has to be a story worth checking out.
It can't just be 10 to 15 segments of crap.
It needs to be relevant.
So there is a lot that goes into it
and it's very important that I'm able to do
that on my own, which is why I have my own tools
for helping me do that as well.
Today, I wanna walk you through one of my favorite tools
for making amazing Instagram Stories that grab attention
and that tool is also the sponsor of this episode
of AmyTV and that is our friends at Adobe Spark.
You've probably seen me talk about Spark in the past.
I was so excited when this app came out
that I literally, I remember the day like it was yesterday,
and it was actually just like, oh so long ago.
I filmed, edited, and published a video in like less
than four hours the day that it was announced
that this tool was available because it was so helpful
for us bootstrapping creators,
And then I went on to work with on a couple
of other projects but it has definitely been
a tried-and-true tool for us to use a Gatluw House
for making Instagram look interesting.
Now, Adobe spark is not just for Instagram.
It's for a lot of different platforms,
in a lot of different design capacities,
but this just happens to be one
of my favorite ways to use it.
So I highly recommend you check it out.
It is free for you to use right at the start,
so play with it along with me while I'm showing you
what's going on so that you can really see
the opportunity for what it can do for you.
If you're interested in their premium service,
I will leave a link in the description below
so that you can get that AmyTV discount, honey.
Yes, saving the moneys.
Before we get into it, if you love being a savvy socialite
and wanna see more videos like this,
I need you to give this video a thumbs up so that I know
that we should make more stuff like this in the future.
It really helps the channel to be able to help more people
go after the life they want as well,
so thank you for doing that.
As I'm sure is not shocking to you,
I have some rules for Instagram design, yes rules,
I am a rule follower, I love them.
When I'm designing something for Instagram,
it must follow the three I's of Instagram
in order to make it to my account.
That is interesting, impactful, and inviting.
interesting means that
it's specifically tailored for my community.
it needs to be relevant to the conversation
that we always have on the account.
It can't just be some willy-nilly random thing
unless I can tie in why that's something
that would be important to my audience.
When something is impactful, it's inspiring,
it makes you think when you look at it.
So you're not just watching aimless posts on my account.
You're potentially having a thought-provoking conversation
with yourself and with me.
And speaking of having a conversation with me,
inviting means that I didn't just start
the conversation and leave.
I started it and we continue to have it.
So sometimes, that means running a poll
or asking a question or just going into my DMs
and seeing what you think about something.
If I'm just posting something just to post
and I don't care about your opinion about it,
it's totally worthless.
This is probably the most important I of Instagram.
So interesting, impactful, and inviting,
otherwise, no dice.
We don't post.
So if you're trying to have a conversation
with yourself right now about I don't even know
what I would design for my Instagram,
I don't know what I wanna post,
those are my three guidelines.
Hopefully, they're helpful for you and make you think,
okay, well if I'm thinking like my audience
and what would be cool for them to see
and make them want to follow and want to watch every story,
how can we make something that fits the bill?
Okay, so keeping those three Is in mind,
I'm gonna pop over to my phone so I can show you Spark
on mobile and all of the ways that I like
to create with their designs so that I
can make sure my Instagram Story pops
and it fits the rules of a fabulous Instagram account.
What we know about Instagram is it's a creative place,
so you have to do little things
to stand out and be creative,
but you can't get too fancy where people
don't really know what you're trying to accomplish.
What I like for this is going to the animation tab.
If you just poke around and look at what they can do,
it's just subtle enough that it grabs the eye,
but it's not like so ridiculously animated
that you feel like you're looking at too much.
So what I like to look for is an animation,
especially to dress up something like a Q and A.
If I'm just gonna pop a Q and A box into this graphic,
I want it to stand out but I also don't want people
to skip past it if it's too crazy to look at.
I want them to stop and submit
their question for my Q and A.
So a quick way you can do this,
there's a couple designs you can choose from
and you can look through animation to see
what the opportunity is there.
I'm just gonna go ask me in the search bar
and there's so many in here already.
I'm just gonna click this one, super cute, animated,
and you just place the question sticker on top,
just like it says.
We're gonna remix this template.
Now if you're ever unsure that this is something
that is ready to go where you want to post it,
click the resize button.
If it's not already sized for Instagram Story,
all you have to do is select Instagram Story
and it'll resize it for you.
No additional work needed, no needing to know pixel sizes
or anything like that.
We are already in Instagram Story
and I actually really like this graphic.
I just wanna change the text
and a couple of things that are going on.
So I'm gonna tap the text here.
We have been loving play fair in the office.
Oh, that looks so cute.
So I'm gonna keep that there.
I'm gonna move it a little.
You don't want it to get too high to the top
because it could hit your avatar photo
that Instagram puts there.
So just kind of play around with it so
that it's your style but also isn't going to be conflicting
with the actual functionality of Instagram.
And we can delete this because we already know
that we wanna put that there.
And sometimes, I'll use these for a AmyTV,
so I might put here you could
have your answer featured on AmyTV, exclamation point.
Change that text, make it a little bit bigger,
so it's easier to read.
And there you go.
You've got a amazing graphic that grabs attention
and all you have to do is pop
that questions box on top of it.
Let's try that.
We're gonna export this as a video animation.
Go to Instagram, go into our Story, and there you go.
Now we just need to add the question box.
I'm just gonna leave this blank 'cause we've already
got what we need in here, size it to your liking,
and there you go,
Now all those questions will obviously be in Instagram,
but this is a graphic that grabs attention more
than just a regular screen or photo with the question box.
It actually makes it look like you put
a little bit more effort into it.
Okay, so the next thing that I love to do
in my Instagram Story is promote some kind
of content that I just made.
So if it's a video or if it's a podcast,
I like to go in here and just look for an easy way
to show people that they can swipe up
to check something out.
Even if you don't have swipe up,
you can always put a link in the bio.
Just because you made it doesn't mean people
are just gonna go listen to it right away.
I've gotta tell people on my Instagram,
go listen to my latest podcast, it's excellent.
So what I'm gonna do is I like to look
at the premium options here because the design level
is a little bit higher grade
and there's a really great one right off the bat,
how to start a podcast.
We can change this up really easily,
throw in a photo, make the colors the right way,
and we'll have an awesome podcast promo.
We need to remix this template.
Right away, I noticed this is not Instagram Story,
so we definitely, it's a great Pinterest graphic.
We need to change this to Instagram Story,
so let's resize that,
and so it automatically resized that for us.
I'm going to change the background.
Background's gotta be my favorites.
I like this little microphone but I want it to be white.
I'm gonna change this to the font that I like.
So for this one, I'm gonna promote a recent BFF chat
that I did on the podcast.
And so, we're gonna pop that title in here.
So if you actually go to this animation section,
you can see where you can play with the different options
to animate what you've already created.
So let's just pick one and see what it does here.
So with this, I love that because you know there's
a BFF chatm but then the title of it shows up later.
I think that's kind of cool.
So you can see,
there's like just so many different things that you can do.
You can just do a fade, which is really cool,
'cause that looks like you edited it
in a professional editor.
So I'm gonna go with that one.
Another thing I absolutely love,
if you're a fan of AmyTV gifs on Instagram,
or if you like to call them gifs,
you're fine to do that, I guess,
you can add them in Adobe.
So if you hit add and you go to add sticker,
I'm gonna type AmyTV 'cause that's where I
have all my gifs hidden and I'm gonna look
for Detail Therapy, which I know is in here.
And so now, I have my little chip of my podcast logo
and there's definitely things you can do within Adobe Spark.
You can add your branding.
I just think this is kind of a fun way for me to do it,
so I've got it in here as a little gif,
but now I have the logo for my podcast,
got a little podcast mic and I have
a promotional graphic for the new podcast when it comes out.
One of my favorite things for Instagram
is just to give people something to do,
something to give them some kind of a thought exercise.
So lately, I've been sharing sort of like fill
in the blank posts that you can post on your own account.
And so, when you create those,
it's really cool because you inspire people
to take action in their own creation,
but you also get to create something lots
of people love to use.
You can make those fill-in-the-blank graphics
in Adobe Spark really easily.
If we just go over to premium
and you'll see here's one right away.
This looks like something I would share immediately.
I might add a tiny bit of color to it,
but it says my morning, my usual wake up time,
I love to and then include something there,
a little weather emoji.
You can change up all of these fields to something
that fits more of what you talk about,
something that's more interesting to your community based
on what you like to do on your Instagram account,
but I really like a lot of this.
My usual wake up time is a really good one.
I don't know why I don't have that on my,
on one of my other graphics, but for this one,
I would just change it to say emoji mood.
That's what I want that to say,
so people put their emoji on that.
The background is so pretty.
Maybe I'll just change this text, and again,
I am definitely adding one of my morning gifs.
Got my little sun and a little coffee mug,
and one more, and my lemon water.
What you definitely wanna add on this is some text
that says your handle so that if somebody recreates this
on their feed, then they will give you
a little bit of credit.
So we're gonna stick that at the bottom.
kinda small, no big deal.
Just letting people know where it came from
in case they want to go grab a screenshot
of it for themselves.
How cute is that?
That is so Instagram, I love it/
And we wanna export that as a video animation
because there's so many fun little gifs in it
and there you go.
You have a little design to share on your Instagram Story.
I absolutely love Adobe Spark for making sure
that I hit those three rules for Instagram content
that really pops and actually matters to my audience.
There's a reason why they reply to my DMs
and they see my stuff and it's because I try really hard
to make sure that it's something that they want to see.
I highly recommend you try Adobe Spark for this
because it's a great jumping-off point,
lots of amazing templates as you could tell,
that you can customize.
Again, free to start, but if you would like
to get 20% off your Adobe Spark membership,
so that you can use those premium templates,
which are going to save you a lot more time
to get a lot more creative and definitely check out
the link in the description below.
Question of the day.
What is something that you are passionate
about talking about on your Instagram
that you want to share more of in your stories?
Leave that in a comment below.
That's not for today.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
I appreciate it as always.
Make sure you subscribe for good vibes,
kiss the ones you love and go after the life you want.
Cheers.
(lively music)
Ellen, you're so right.
Change is gonna happen anyway
and I love your suggestion of courage.
Tom, will you please start that vlog channel?
Just take a chance!
It's for you and you just gotta know
who you're talking to, that's all that matters.
Yamila, good to see you.
Thank you so much for tuning in from Argentina
and Nora, I really appreciate that feedback.
I'm so glad to hear this was a pick me up for you.
Stephanie, get out of your head and into your actions.
I'm so glad that resonated with you
as much as it resonates with me on a daily basis.
Sarah, is so good to see a comment from you, as always.
And, Ebb, thanks for the feedback on my Instagram posts.
Stay yah ass at home, right?
And Rowan, so good to see you
and thank you for tuning in, as always.
(lively music)