Instagram stories represent a monumental opportunity for brands. With over 500 million daily active viewers, stories enable you to reach, engage and convert massive audiences.
But simply posting random videos and images as stories won‘t cut it. To stand out amongst the vibrant mix of content, you need visually striking stories specifically optimized for the format.
That‘s where Instagram story makers come in…
The Powerful Value of Story Makers
Story makers are tools to create professional, eye-catching stories in just minutes without any design expertise. They provide stunning templates, animations, graphics, interactive elements and more to elevate your content.
As a marketer, you may wonder: why bother taking the time to use an Instagram story maker?
Here‘s why they‘re invaluable:
Increase Reach
Great stories pique viewer curiosity, prompting them to check out your profile and give you a follow. One HubSpot study found consistent story posting grew follower numbers up to 11X faster compared with sporadic posting.
Boost Engagement
By making content more fun, dynamic and shareable, stories tend to generate explosive engagement. Instagram reports 3x more comments and 10x more DMs vs. regular posts.
Drive Conversions
With links, buttons and calls-to-action, story makers empower you to turn views into clicks and sales. One maker, Storylu, enables shoppable Instagram stories — items get tagged for direct checkout.
Analyze Performance
Monitoring views, responses, clicks and other metrics is crucial for optimizing your approach. Many advanced makers like Biteable integrate analytics dashboards to dig into the data.
For any brand active on Instagram, utilizing the platform‘s booming story feature is mandatory to thrive. Let‘s explore 12 phenomenal makers for creating stories that captivate and convert viewers.
1. Promo
Promo makes incredible video stories using pre-made templates tailored to your niche.
Key Benefits
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Hundreds of Dialed-In Video Templates – Simply personalize industry-specific templates expertly designed to grab attention.
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Animated Elements – Add stylish text, stickers, filters and motion graphics to bring still images to life.
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Dynamic Music Integration – Seamlessly mix thrilling tunes into videos to trigger emotional responses.
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Ad Templates – Specifically optimized for high-performing social video campaigns.
Anna Klawitter, Social Media Manager at Spark Golf, shares: "Promo‘s beautiful templates made an instant difference in the engagement and clicks on our golf equipment ads."
With Promo, no design or technical skills are necessary. Their templated approach guarantees polished stories every time.
2. Veed.io
Veed.io equips you with countless effects and tools for custom story creation.
Key Benefits
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Robust Editing Functionality – Trim clips, incorporate filters, overlay text/imagery and more. Give each story your unique aesthetic.
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Massive Asset Library – Choose from millions of animations, emojis, textures, shapes, drawings, and stickers sourced from independent creators.
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Text-to-Speech and Voiceovers – Add automated narration or record voice tracks to go beyond static images.
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Real-Time Previews -Instantly see how changes look while designing. Tweak and iterate easily.
The open-endedness of Veed empowers unbridled creativity. Fashion brand Wolf & Badger increased story engagement 7X after adding distinctive animations with Veed.
It‘s the perfect maker for marketers who want fine-tuned control over designs.
3. Canva
Canva simplifies graphic design for stunning visual stories with 60,000 templates and a wealth of media to customize.
Key Benefits
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Drag-and-Drop Simplicity – No prior graphic design expertise needed. Just pick a template, upload brand assets and create!
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Huge Media Selection – 1 million gorgeous photos, graphics and illustration to incorporate ensure on-brand aesthetics.
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Brand Management – Define and implement colors, fonts and logos across all your stories with brand kits for visual consistency.
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Photo Optimization – Crop, apply filters, adjust lighting and opacity. Make images pop off the screen.
With an interface even novices can navigate, Canva opens up professional story creation to businesses at any scale.
"We started getting 2-3X more views on our Instagram stories made with Canva. Their templates lend an authentic, human touch we struggled to achieve manually before," explains Lucy Chang, Social Media Strategist at And Sons Brewing.
Give Canva‘s library of magnificently designed templates a browse for inspiration that resonates.
4. Adobe Express
An industry juggernaut, Adobe Express offers 6,400+ premade templates from top graphic artists.
Key Benefits
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BeautifulTemplates – Professionally created templates with refined aesthetics for an elevated look and feel.
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Drag-and-Drop Images – Seamlessly incorporate your visuals into templates to put a unique spin suitable for your brand.
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Animated Text – Choose from eye-catching presets with dynamic motions like swivels, zooms and fades.
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Shapes, Textures and Frames – Enhance imagery further with graphical embellishments around the edges.
Adobe leads the media production space. Though best suited for creative agencies, businesses of any size can use their high-caliber templates as springboards for great storytelling.
5. PicsArt
With over 100,000 templates, 1 million images and an array of tools, PicsArt fosters engaging DIY storytelling.
Key Benefits
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Drawing Tools – Get creative by freehand sketching and annotating over images and videos.
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Custom Animations – Bring static visuals alive with animated behaviors like shakes, zooms and bounces.
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Background Removal – Isolate subjects instantly with one click to emphasize people and products.
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100 Fonts – Express distinctive personality through stylized typography that captivates viewers.
Leverage PicsArt‘s community-sourced assets and intuitive editing capabilities to produce stories that feel distinctly you. It gives companies room to showcase ingenuity.
6. Biteable
Biteable provides stunning pre-animated video templates specifically designed for social media.
Key Benefits
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Animated Videos – Choose cinemagraph-style templates with floating shapes, dynamic text and clean infographics.
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Stock Media Library – Fill scenes with relevant video clips, images, illustrations and icons sourced from Getty Images and StoryBlocks.
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Text and Logo Integration – Easily incorporate sleek captions, lower thirds, intros/outros and branding throughout videos.
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Detailed Analytics – Review impressions, shares, clicks and conversations surrounding each story natively in Biteable.
Biteable makes breathtaking video stories scalable. Their high-quality templates tell compelling narratives guaranteed to perform.
7. PicMonkey
PicMonkey‘s robust design toolkit lets you create stunning visual stories from scratch.
Key Benefits
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Hundreds of Templates – Professionally designed layouts for muses like travel, fitness, weddings and more to jumpstart ideas.
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Intuitive Image Editor – Crop, touch up, apply filters, textures and adjustable light leaks. Dial in sleek aesthetics.
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Animated Text – Insert animated captions and headers that transition with slides, fades and other neat motions.
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Overlays andFrames – Encircle imagery with lines, geometric shapes or illustration to accentuate key focal points.
While PicMonkey offers templates, its real strength lies in enabling creators to put wholly original spins on content. Manipulate stills and video dynamically to capture viewer curiosity.
8. InVideo
InVideo provides on-trend video story templates explicitly designed for Instagram Reels.
Key Benefits
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Reels Templates – Pre-formatted scene durations, suggested camera shots and text to guide Reels creation.
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GIFs and Emojis – Spruce up videos with animated stickers and icons to infuse your brand personality.
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Professional Stock Media – Fill scenes with clips sourced from StoryBlocks and Getty Images.
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Auto-Generated Captions – AI identifying people and objects in videos then describes the action via text overlay.
As Reels explode in popularity, InVideo offers a major leg up. Repurpose templates endlessly to dominate the key discovery surfaces algorithmically.
9. Over
Over‘s library harbors 10,000+ templates across every industry to excite any audience.
Key Benefits
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10,000+ Industry-Specific Templates – Finance, restaurants, events, non-profits — they‘ve got you covered.
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1M+ Customizable Graphic Assets – Choose background patterns, shapes, illustrations and textures to augment any composition.
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Photo Editing – Crop, brightness/contrast tuning, filter application and other adjustments.
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Animated Text – Insert subtle floating or bouncing behaviors on bold captions that command focus.
Over makes it effortless to speak directly to your niche by providing beautifully designed templates fitting any enterprise.
"As a boutique social media agency, Over has been our secret weapon for delivering tons of wow-worthy Instagram stories every week to satisfy clients across sectors," explains Jenn Markham, Founder of The Visual Voice Agency.
10. Slides
Slides simplifies graphical story creation through templates organized by themes like travel, retail, cooking and lifestyle verticals.
Key Benefits
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Animated templates – cinemagraph-style motion backgrounds with floating shapes, dynamic text and clean infographics.
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Adaptability – Upload images, embed video clips and overlay graphics onto templates for complete customization.
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Consistent Branding – Ensure logo, stylized graphics, color schemes and text styles carry over across all stories.
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Versatility – Export templates into presentations, videos and other formats beyond Instagram after creation. Extend value long-term.
Slides‘ elegant templates accelerate story production so you spend less time designing and more time posting captivating content consistently.
11. Stensul
Stensul offers healthily pre-made story templates easily tailored to your specific brand look.
Key Benefits
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Animated Story Templates – Cinemagraph-style floating shapes, dynamic text animations and infographics.
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Drag-and-Drop Customization – Photos, colors, fonts, captions – modify every element on-the-fly without leaving the editor.
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Industry-Specific Content Packs – Relevant photos, icons and design resources so you don‘t have to start from scratch.
Stensul combines powerful editing tools with gorgeous starting templates accredited designers gravitate towards. The adaptable foundation fuels your unique creative expression.
12. Storylu
Storylu trailblazes shoppable templates so customers purchase items directly from stories.
Key Benefits
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Optimized Shopping Experience – Hassle-free checkout after viewers tap tagged products integrated elegantly into stories.
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Design Personalization – Fine-tune templates by uploading product catalogs, tweaking palettes and overlays and inserting captions.
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Analytics – Gain actionable insight into product impressions, clicks and sales stemming from each story.
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User-Generated Content – Effortless reposting visuals from satisfied customers to highlight real-world use cases.
For ecommerce brands, Storylu unlocks monetization avenues unique to the story format, creating new conversion and revenue pipelines.
Crafting Captivating Stories 101
Wielding the right maker is imperative, but effectively utilizing tools determines how your stories perform ultimately.
Here are several crucial best practices:
Maintain Consistent Branding
Install your logo, official colors, stylized graphics and messaging into every creation so fans instantly recognize your content.
Make Stories Actionable
Entice viewers by showcasing deals, prompting content downloads or redirecting to key landing pages.
Hook Attention Rapidly
You have 1.5 seconds before losing views to swiping. Lead captivatingly with bold visuals, geo/hashtag stickers or shoppable tags up top.
Tell Compelling Narratives
Divide key themes across multiple sequential stories. Intriguing plots keep audiences eagerly progressing through each part to uncover what happens next.
Remix Trends Uniquely
Analyze what creators in your industry do successfully but remix concepts with your own special twist. This fusion captivates both existing and net new audiences.
Ready to start designing some stellar Instagram stories? Browse the copious assets and capabilities across these 12 makers to uncover the right fit for your brand. Then begin crafting content that captivates and converts viewers!
