What is the ideal format for a successful Instagram story? Instagram stories help you share moments and experiences while keeping your followers up to date with your current activities. You can share vertical photos or short videos, which disappear after 24 hours.

However, like any content on social media, if it’s not shared in the right format, your audience won’t engage with it.

But what is the ideal Instagram story format ?

As more and more people are using Stories to boost engagement levels or promote their brands, we’re going to talk about the optimal dimensions and valuable tips for you to be an Insta story whiz.

Reminder on Instagram Stories

Instagram Stories or IG Stories helps users post vertical images and videos that disappear after 24 hours . Your profile picture has a colored BuyIGFollowersmalaysia around it when you post a new story to let your followers know.

Colored rings around profiles represent new stories posts.

Tap people’s profile pictures to see their stories. This action will also show you all the content they have recently shared in fullscreen mode. To go back or forward in a story, you can tap left or right on the screen .

You can track who views your story with insights.

You can also keep it active for more than 24 hours by adding it to your profile as a featured story .

Photos and videos you share through Stories disappear from your profile, feed, and messages after 24 hours, unless you add them to your profile as a featured story.

Unlike other social media posts like Facebook Live , Stories doesn’t allow public comments, but you can send comments and likes to the author directly.

What is the ideal Instagram story format?

The best format for an Instagram story is 1080 pixels wide by 1920 pixels high, with an aspect ratio of 9:16.

Images and videos are scaled vertically; if you upload images in landscape format, they won’t look good. This will have a direct impact on your engagement.

Here are the specifications in brief:

• Image files must be in JPG or PNG format and be less than 30 MB.
• Video files must be in MP4, MOV or GIF format, 60 seconds in length and less than 4 GB in size.
• Anyone can watch your stories if your account is public. For private accounts, your posts are only visible to your followers.

What is the ideal format for a successful Instagram story? If you don’t follow the correct dimensions , the social media platform will crop or zoom your content, which can ruin your post. If your images are small, they will appear pixelated in the final post.

Use the optimal size of Instagram stories:

• Helps your content appear high quality.
• Avoid pixelated or cropped posts.
• Allows your brand to stand out on the social network (if you use your account for professional purposes).

Now that you know these characteristics, make sure you’re posting in the right story format and at the right resolution.

Portrait content helps you take advantage of Instagram’s screen real estate . You can also add written text, stickers, layouts, questions, countdowns, and quizzes to your stories.

In short, the app offers dozens of marketing tools at your disposal to create stories that have a real effect on your followers.

You can also take photos and videos from your phone’s gallery and resize them using photo and video editing apps before uploading them to your stories.

The 5 Best Practices for Quality Stories

Instagram stories are versatile because you can use cool features to make them trend.

You can keep your followers up to date, promote your personal or corporate brand, sell products, and use them for influencer marketing. Here are some tips for your Instagram stories .

Use high quality content

Your posts will look professional with high-quality content.

Instagram compresses images and videos when uploading, so grainy images deteriorate further in quality. Make sure your images have at least 72 PPI (pixels per inch) before publishing them.

Your resolution is as important as having a photo in the right format and ratio.

Respect the correct dimensions

You don’t have to worry about the dimensions of stories if you shoot videos or vertical photos using your smartphone from the app.

However, if you upload your photos or videos, Instagram will crop or zoom your horizontal content to fit the correct Instagram story size . In this case, the final downloads will be of poor quality. Therefore, your stories should maintain a 9:16 aspect ratio .

Shoot vertically

Unlike regular Instagram posts, which are flexible in size and orientation, Stories work well with vertical content . If your images or videos are in landscape formats, consider posting them on your insta page instead.

Use editing apps

You can use editing apps like Canva, Adobe Spark, and Lumen5 to upload high-quality content while maintaining the correct dimensions. These story apps allow you to enter specs, upload and edit content, and create graphics. generalspeaks