Stories are growing 15 times faster than other content pieces. With over 500 million active users every day on Instagram alone, stories are reaching a lot of Instagram users every day. However, it is not enough to simply push out a story. Creating Instagram Stories that actually convert need creativity, energy, time, and the right set of tools.
Animations, filters, stickers and cool overlays—today’s Instagram Stories look better than ever. Not because suddenly we have a hoard of designers, but because there are tons of amazing Instagram Story apps available. With new apps for creating Instagram Stories being added to your Smartphone options every day, it has never been easier to create engaging stories with that oomph factor.
Over
Over is one of the most amazing Stories creation tool that offers everything from professional looking templates to amazing backgrounds. Why would anyone have to contend with complex Photoshop tools, laboriously trying to craft stories that will eventually disappear in thin air within 24 hours, when they can create awe-inspiring Stories in a jiffy with this tool? Brands that are looking to maintain a consistent presence and stick to their style guidelines in every Story would also greatly benefit from this tool. Upload your brand color palettes, fonts, and company logos so as to make your stories appear ‘on-brand’. Bonus: this app lets you add unlimited photos to a single canvas!
Mojo
Creating branded videos can be quite a handful. Luckily there are apps out there that can make this a walk in the park. Mojo is one of the best video editing apps if you are looking to create Video Stories. Videos make for extremely popular Instagram stories since they are fun, engaging, and quick. Mojo offers more than a 100 editable video templates, so you can customize them to your preference. Not to mention, you will have thousands of customizable and fully animated text variations to choose from. What we love best about mojo is that it keeps adding to its repository of text styles and templates every month.
Canva
Canva is one of the most advanced and comprehensive editing apps out there. Regardless of whether you are a photoshop master or a beginner, Canva has all the design gems to make creating stories a breeze. While the other tools on our list focus more on the photo editing feature, Canva offers a wide array of unique features for a variety of purposes. No need to run after your design team when you can do it on your own! Avail its wonderful collection of amazing icons, photos, and templates, all of which are completely editable. Other creative elements such as rotating, brightness adjustment, cropping, and blurring are also available. Simply upload your videos and add text, icons, and stickers, or try your hands at one of its 60,000+ premade templates.
Unfold
If you want to stare creativity in the face, visit the website of unfold. If you want to highlight your brand’s videos and photos in the most amazing light, this app is a photographer’s dream come true. It offers elegant, minimalistic templates to let you create amazing Instagram stories. It supports both video and photo stories and offers a plethora of design and font options for each. You can incorporate a classic look and feel to your Stories with ripped photo edges, frames and templates.
StoryArt
You only have to look at this app’s ratings on both the Apple Store (4.8 stars) and the Play store (4.7 stars) to know what we are talking about. The app is simply a breeze to install and use, with its wide array of preset templates that you can use to create amazing Instagram Stories. Not only it gives you a repository of breathtaking templates, it offers plenty of options for adding design effects as well. You can add text with different design effects, themes, filters, and fonts. The app is available for both Android and iOS.
Typorama
If you want an app that has the capability to superimpose attention-grabbing and fun text over your Instagram Story images, Typorama is your dream come true. It allows you to create beautiful typographic designs with ease. Simply choose a background and type your message. The best thing I love about the app is the vast variety of typographic layouts, with various options for typefaces and fonts to choose from. The app also has a repository of amazing photo editing features in addition to its various advanced text tools. From image correction options to overlays and filters, this tool offers a complete package to help you polish up your background images. In addition to offering hundreds of quotes to use for your Stories, the tool offers distortion features, shadows and gradients for text enhancement.
8mm
Looking to record videos in a retro 8mm camera fashion? Look no further than the vintage camera app. With 12 types of aged and retro including the Sakura, Noir and 1920s, and 7 types of lenses such as flickering frame and clear, this app is great for creating retro style Instagram video stories. The app also offers you the option to add effects to existing videos from your gallery.
A Design Kit
This awesome app is exclusively for designers. The Design Kit is full of realistic brushes and vibrant designs. Make sure your stories are never boring by adding a variety of textures in them and incorporating gorgeous fonts to wow your followers. Add a spice factor to your Instagram Stories by getting hooked on this app.
Adobe Spark
Don’t be tempted by apps that offer you “hundreds of free templates” when Adobe can give you thousands! And contrary to what people think, you don’t have to be a pro to be able to work with Adobe. Even an amateur can come up with a great design using Adobe Spark. What’s best is that you can log in from anywhere and device and get instant access to your work. For instance, you start crafting a design idea on your laptop but want to continue on your mobile later, you can pick up right where you left off. While this app is not free, its pretty easy on the pockets with just $9.99/month.
CutStory
While the 15 second cap on Instagram videos is one of the best things about Instagram, it is also a nuisance for marketers. Sure, we all know that short pieces of content are more engaging and fun, but let’s face it, they are more limiting. For times when you can’t express your thoughts in under 15 stories, CutStory exists to break down your larger stories in less than 15 second intervals. You’ll end up with a continuous stream of videos that you can post as Instagram Stories. Not only does it cut long videos into Instagram-length clips, it can also export videos without compressing them.
