welcome to stories studio

We're glad you're here. Mastering Story-making requires a completely different skill set from crafting News Feed posts, so social media managers may understandably find the shift daunting. We’re here to help. In this handbook, you’ll find tips and techniques to help create polished, innovative Stories to educate, update, and entertain your fans.

key techniques

Traditional News Feed posts require copywriting, as well as  some basic photo editing and understanding of the platform. Creating great Stories entails: videography, photography, layout design, storytelling, graphic design, and platform-specific tools, like Boomerang. By utilizing all the tools at your fingertips, you can engage with a wider audience and create beautiful, innovative, cohesive content. 

snapchat vs. instagram

Both Snapchat and Instagram have a Stories feature that allows users to create daily updates that last 24 hours, as opposed to traditional NewsFeed posts which last indefinitely. The tone of these platforms differ from one another; successful Stories on Instagram tend to be filmed beautifully, with a focus on photo and video footage. Snapchat tends to have a looser, slightly-sloppy vibe, with cheeky and fun posts winning out over fully-produced content.

native text tools

Instagram and Snapchat now have the capability to change fonts. In Instagram, the font can be changed by opening the text tool and clicking the "Classic" button at the top. Pressing repeatedly scrolls through all the font options. Classic, typewriter, modern, and strong are fine to use for blocks of text; neon, however, is harder to read and best used for accent only. 

In Snapchat, the font can be changed by opening the text tool and pressing the different options below. You can scroll right to find even more choices!

Generally, you'll want to choose a font and stick with it through the story to create a cohesive theme. The flashier fonts can be used for short accent words or phrases, but the simpler fonts let the photos and videos really shine.

custom colors

If your branding requires a color scheme outside of Instagram and Snapchat's presets, fear not! You can create custom colors on both platforms, as well as utilize Instagram's eyedropper tool to color-match your background image.

In Instagram, open up the text tool and select the color bubble closest to your desired shade. Holding down on it will open a color spectrum, which allows you to move across the gradient (with your finger still held down). When you find your hue, lift up your finger to select.

On Snapchat, the color-select tool works very similarly. Open the text tool and press down on the color gradient bar (on the right-hand side of the screen). To access additional colors, press and hold while dragging your finger to the left, away from the bar. Lift up to select.

adding transparency & layers

Add interest to your photos by utilizing Instagram's transparency tool. This can be used to make text more legible on top of photos, as well as to draw attention to a particular part of the photo. To do this, open the text tool. Click the capital A at the top lefthand side of the screen twice to turn on transparency. Choose your color from the presets below, or find your color-of-choice on the gradient. Type any letter, and then the spacebar several times. Press and drag the transparent box where you'd like it, and then stretch to hide the text. You can add text on top by creating a new text field (the "T" tool) and dragging it into place.

drop shadow text

Adding a drop shadow is an easy way to emphasize text in Instagram. First, type your copy in a contrasting background color. Create a new text field, type the same text, and align them to match the sizes exactly. Press and drag the top text layer slightly offset from the bottom layer, et voila! Eye-catching text that's easy to do! 

adding color fill