Practical tips on filming for Instagram Stories – you can find this video on YouTube and IGTV – if you find video easier to watch.

First up, the basics.

1 Know who you are filming for:

Instagram stories is a 15 second snippet, or you can film up to a minute and Instagram will break it up for you.

IGTV which is slightly hidden, but extremely necessary, is over a minute long.

Both are portrait formats, meaning to film it like this, but if you have something awesome that is landscape, don’t worry, you can upload it too but it just won’t look as snazzy.

2 Filming:

Filming is fairly straight forward, and you have two options:

To film straight to Instagram stories, simply go to your Home Screen, select the little camera top left and you should see yourself. Simply hold down the button to record. If you need to switch the camera around, choose the button bottom right.

To film your piece beforehand, just open your camera (on an iPhone) and pick the icon in the bottom left corner with the arrows on to turn it around. Swipe along the options at the bottom to select video and away we go. 

3 Top tips:

Stability is key with filming anything, so try finding a place to stand your camera and invest in a tripod once you’re ready. I find that the ones with maximum height are best so you have more flexibility.

Secondly look for natural light. I recommend, just experimenting with this until you find the best place to film. Try and be near natural light but avoid very strong light which can cast shadows.

Thirdly, take your time, the more you do it the better you will get.

4 Posting on Instagram Stories:

View this post on Instagram

?This was a request to cover the basics for Instagram Stories! There is so much content because they constantly keep updating, that I could have filmed about ten videos! ✒️ Talking fun filters and backgrounds and how to find them ✒️ Stickers and text ✒️ Polls and quizzes This is a fast video so if you want further explanation, let me know and can do on stories ?? This is for @paolina_instagram from our @laurafromaura PR Surgery! . . #prgirl #fashionpr #lifestylepr #prlifestyle #shemeansbusiness #womenintheworld #femalehustler #dreamersandoers #bloggervibes #londonblogger #fbloggeruk #publicrelations #publicrelationsagency #publicrelationslife #londonpr #marketingconsultant #marketingexpert #marketingtips #marketinghelp #marketingideas #marketingadvice #marketingstrategy #marketing101

A post shared by NakedPRGirl (@nakedprgirl) on Apr 24, 2020 at 12:42am PDT

Now you have your video, it is time to upload it.

If you filmed it straight to stories, it will already be on your screen.

Or go to stories and swipe up to find it.

Swipe left or right to add a filter of your choice. Pro tip, try and use the same filter every time for consistency.

To add basic stickers

To add text, hit the top right button, and to select a font – look at the top middle and you can select between Typewriter and Strong for example. Choose from the different colours on the bar at the bottom. You can use the pen / dipper icon to select a bespoke colour from your picture.

Next to that, you have a squiggly line which means you can draw freely on your picture or video.

The link icon means you can link to IGTV or a website (if you have over 10k followers)

And the smiley face can add different filter options to your images.

On your video, swipe up to find all the different tags and stickers you can add to this.

As a ‘must’ always try and add location (unless you don’t want people to know where you are.

Options to add include:

A mention to someone else, a hashtag, the time, the temperature, and pre-loaded stickers. At the moment this includes Stay Home and Thank You Hour but these change from time to time.

More fun things to add include:

Music which you can select the track and which part of the track your followers can hear. Although be aware this can stop it being shared to someone else story,  a poll where you can invite your audience to vote Yes or No on one question, questions to your audience that they can answer, a countdown to the next big event (say a product launch or a webinar), a sliding like-o-meter for your fans, a quiz to play a game with your followers.

Gifs can also be fun to add, just hit the GIF icon and put in your search a person, an idea, an emotion and see what comes up. Select it and click and drag to move it around. 

Extras – the fun filters

Once you’re familiar with the basics, you can move on to more fun filters if you wish and try out the huge amount of effects available.

Look at the bottom of Instagram stories where it says ‘normal’ and look just above that to the little home button and scroll across to find really fun filters with butterflies and flowers etc.

While in this mode, look to the effect name underneath and you’ll see a little arrow. Hit that and click ‘Browse effects’ to see a million other options!

Select this and film your video as normal.

To post, finally hit bottom left of your screen to share to Stories, you can select Close Friends if it is more private, or just send as a direct message to a friend.