Everyone has a story to tell. In this hyper-digital age, how you tell your tale makes all the difference. A perfect Instagram story size adds colors to your life’s moments while upping your social media game.

Renowned author Maya Angelou said, “There’s no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Instagram Stories helps you share moments and experiences while keeping your followers updated on your current activities. You can share vertical photos or short videos, which disappear after 24 hours.

As more and more people use Stories to drive engagement levels or promote their brands, we will talk about optimal dimensions and valuable hacks for you to ace the process.

What Are Instagram Stories?

Instagram Stories or IG Stories helps users post vertical images and videos that disappear after 24 hours. Your profile gets a colorful ring when you post a new story to notify your followers.

Colorful rings around profiles depict new story posts.

Tap on people’s profile photos to discover their stories. This action will also show you all content that they recently shared in the full-screen mode. To rewind or forward stories, you can tap left or right on your screen.

You can track who views your story while adding it to your profile as story highlights. According to Instagram, the 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 story highlights.”

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.

Ideal Instagram Story Dimensions

The correct Instagram story size is 1080 pixels wide by 1920 pixels tall, with a 9:16 aspect ratio. Images and videos are vertical-friendly; if you upload horizontal ones, they won’t look good.

Here are the specifications in short:

• Picture files should be in JPG or PNG formats and under 30 MB in size.
• Video files should be in MP4, MOV or GIF formats, 15 seconds long and under 4 GB in size.
• Anyone can watch your stories if your account is public. For private accounts, your posts are visible only to your followers.

If you don’t adhere to the correct dimensions, the social media platform crops or zooms in on your content, which can ruin your posts. If your images are small, they will appear pixelated in the final post.

Using optimal Instagram story size:

• Helps your content appear high-quality.
• Avoids pixelated or cropped posts.
• Makes your brand stand out from the crowd (if you use your account for business).

How To Create Stories

To create a new Instagram story, tap on your story option at the top left corner and select the camera option on your smartphone. Using your phone camera, you can then film a video or click a picture vertically. You can use options like Boomerang to apply special effects.

Create engaging stories using multiple options.

Vertical content helps you take advantage of Instagram screen real estate. You can also add written text, shoutouts, templates, questions, countdowns and quizzes to your stories.

Make your stories quirky by adding GIFs.

You can also use pictures and videos from your phone gallery and resize them using photo and video editing apps before uploading them as your stories.

Best Practices

Instagram stories are versatile as you can use cool features to make them trendy and upbeat. You can keep your followers up-to-date, promote your personal or corporate brand, sell products and use them for influencer marketing. The following are some best practices to get the most out of them.

Use High-Quality Content

Your posts will appear professional with high-quality content. Instagram compresses images and videos while uploading, so grainy images deteriorate further in quality. Ensure that your images are at least 72 PPI (pixels per inch) before uploading.

Adhere To Correct Dimensions

There’s no messing around with the correct story dimensions. You don’t have to worry about story sizes if you shoot vertical videos or pictures using your smartphone.

However, Instagram will crop or zoom in/out your horizontal content to fit its correct size. The final uploads in such cases will be of poor quality. Therefore, your stories should maintain a 9:16 aspect ratio.

Go Vertical

Contrary to regular Instagram posts, which are flexible in dimension and orientation, Stories work well with vertical content. If your images or videos are in horizontal formats, consider uploading them as regular posts.

Use Editing Apps

You can use editing apps like Canva, Adobe Spark and Lumen5 to upload high-quality content while adhering to the correct dimensions. These apps let you enter specifications, upload and edit content and create graphics.

Keep Files Within 30 MB

There’s an upper limit to the file sizes of your superior quality content for stories. Your files should remain within 30 MB.

FAQs

What is the best size for an Instagram story?

Your Instagram story should be 1080 pixels in width and 1920 pixels in height with an aspect ratio of 9:16. The pictures should be at least 500 pixels wide and in JPG and PNG formats. Video files should be in MP4, GIF and MOV formats with a maximum length of 15 seconds. IG Stories supports vertical content.

Does changing Instagram story dimensions change the shape of videos?

No. Though 1080 by 1920 pixels are the best quality visuals, they occupy a lot of storage space on your device and take too long to upload. Switching to lower pixels makes your uploads faster while preserving video and picture quality.

For example, dropping to 720 pixels by 1280 pixels will make the uploads faster while preserving the HD quality. Doing so will not change the video shape as these settings maintain the requisite 9:16 aspect ratio.

How long do Instagram stories last?

Instagram stories disappear after 24 hours of uploading. If you add them to your profile as story highlights, they stay for as long as you want.

What is the best aspect ratio for Instagram stories?

An aspect ratio of 9:16 by height and width works well for Instagram stories. It is popular as it fits nicely on all devices while making your posts appear good.

Conclusion

Creating an Instagram story isn’t difficult, but posting an engaging one is another ball game. The idea is to work around the platform’s nitty-gritty while not overwhelming your followers. You can use strong visuals and powerful graphics to ace the 15-second game.

Stories are a powerful medium to get an engaged following while building your brand image. Be mindful of using correct dimensions so that your posts don’t appear unprofessional and make an impact.

What other hacks do you use to make your stories cut the clutter on social media? Let us know by leaving a comment below!