There’s no denying that Instagram Stories are a fun and effective way to engage with your followers. From interacting with your audience more personally to growing your brand reach and getting instant feedback, Instagram Stories are core to a successful social media strategy. In fact, “nearly 58% of people have become more interested in a brand/product they saw on Stories,” according to HootSuite. So, let’s look at how your brand can attract more interest with Stories!

Why Use PLANOLY’s Stories Planner? 

Stories Planner is your go-to feature in PLANOLY for visually drafting, planning, and scheduling your Instagram Stories. With a full editorial calendar on your plate, Stories Planner is just the tool to help you save time and work smarter (not harder). 

Use Stories Planner from PLANOLY’s Web Dashboard or Mobile App to:

• Stay organized by using collection folders for different stories or campaigns. 

• Visually plan the order of your stories using the drag and drop feature.

• Upload multiple stories at once, including photos and videos. 

• Draft story text, hashtags, and sticker links. When it's time to post, these will copy over to your clipboard!

• New Feature! Edit your stories all in one place with our advanced photo editor.*

• Schedule reminders to post all of your upcoming stories.

*Note: Photo editing is a paid feature. In addition, photo editing in Stories Planner is only available in our iOS app.

Sound familiar? Stories Planner mirrors how you would plan content for your Instagram grid in PLANOLY – it’s your personal storyboard! Plus, at the top of your IG planning grid, you’ll see a Story Bar with all of your upcoming planned stories.

How to Use Stories Planner 

Web:

Mobile:

Step 1: Click on “Plan Stories” in the top left corner.
Step 2: Tap the (+) icon at the bottom of the screen.
Step 3: Upload content from your camera albums, Canva, Dropbox, Google Drive, or the “free stock photos” option. Content can include things like images, GIFs, boomerangs, videos, and Reels.
Step 4: Tap on the uploaded content to add notes, or draft “captions” (i.e., the text you want to add to your story), add hashtags, and schedule post reminders. In addition, edit photos (iOS app only) by clicking on the editor icon. Using the photo editor, you can crop, adjust lighting, and add filters, stickers, overlay text, and more!
Step 5: Schedule a post reminder to publish your story to Instagram manually. Please note that Instagram does not currently allow third-party applications to auto-post stories.
Step 6: When you get the push notification, the “caption” (or text that will appear on your story) will be copied for you to paste over into your story. We open IG for you, but you have to open stories manually! In the Instagram app:

• Tap on the “Your story” icon on your Instagram account.

• Select and upload your media that was just saved onto your camera roll for you.

• Paste your story text by selecting the “Aa” text icon. 

• To add mentions, swipe up and select the “@mention” sticker.

• To add a link sticker, swipe up and select the “@link” sticker.
  

Maximize your time with Stories Planner by easily creating, planning, and publishing valuable content. With approximately one-third of the most viewed IG Stories being posted by businesses, there’s a large audience waiting for you.

We hope you love this feature as much as we do! To learn more, check out our help guide article here.