I’m a big fan of Instagram Stories, but you know what else I’m a fan of? The stickers that we can add to our Instagram Stories to help them do more for us. Below, I talk through 11 stickers for Instagram Stories and how to use them. And below, you’ll find a lot more detail around the 11 gems discussed on the podcast.

11 Stickers for Instagram Stories and How To Use Them

We all know that Instagram Stories can provide us with lots of opportunity to connect with followers in a fun, authentic, unedited way, but they can do so much more than first appears.

And, as luck would have it, Instagram has created a load of stickers to help our Stories do more. Whether they’re being used to help engage our fans and initiate a response, start a conversation, market research, or supporting other small businesses, there are a lot available behind the sticker icon. Here are 11 stickers you should be using on your Instagram Stories, and some ideas for how to apply them to your account to deliver a better return on the time and energy spent on Stories.

#1 Share your business’s physical location to drive foot traffic, or show you’re at an event

The Location sticker does more than add context to a Story; it has a similar function to a hashtag in that it allows Instagram to organise content using the Location sticker, and create a Story around this. Of course, there are no guarantees that the content you use the Location sticker on will be selected by Instagram for aggregation, but it could well be.

So how to use this? Use it to help find out more about certain locations from the people who are there – perfect for events, for example. You can also find out more about your local area, and maybe even find other businesses close to you. Some ‘Locations’ are also business names of premises. If your business address is also a Location on Instagram, use it to promote your business, and encourage customers to use the Location tag when they come and see you. And if not, they could still use the area you’re in.

A word of warning though, the Location tag is a superb tool, but when you use it (or when you recommend others to use it), keep safety in mind. Using the Location tag in real time can potentially make you a little more exposed as people know exactly where you are by referencing your Instagram Stories. That said, the tag can also be used if a time delay is added to uploading and you create the content on site for publishing later.

#2 Show other accounts that you’re talking about them (you might even get a share)

You can add a @ mention through the sticker or through the Text tool, it’s up to you.

Using the Mention sticker is thought to be a more aesthetic way of tagging other accounts in a Story (although with the increased text options now available inside Stories, that’s a point that could be argued). However it definitely gives more prominence to the tag and with a tap, you can change the colour options to one of three.

And, of course, not only can followers connect to the account that you’ve tagged with ease; you’re also making it easy for them to share the content you’ve tagged them in (subject to them wanting to and all the normal restrictions like private account and music, etc).

Encouraging people to use this sticker in relation to your brand can be a superb way of getting really easy to share User Generated Content that’s delivered as a notification straight into your DMs. The Mentions sticker can encourage community, sharing, and provide social proof with minimal effort and the potential for big rewards.

#3 Help your content be discovered by people using # search

Although you can use up to 10 hashtags on an Instagram Story, the Hashtag sticker can be used to highlight one. This might be a brand hashtag or a campaign hashtag, for example, but choose the one you put here well as it’s a lot more prominent than others that you can add using text, or even hide in the Story.

The Hashtag sticker is perfect for your main hashtag, and should be something you want to draw attention to. As per the Location sticker, this one gives your content the chance to be discovered by others who aren’t following you, but decide to explore that hashtag. Unfortunately you can’t guarantee that your Story will be featured by Instagram in that # Story, but you’re increasing your chances.

#4 Find out what your followers really like with a Poll

The Poll is a fast and easy way to engage your Instagram fans and followers, do a little market research… or just have a bit of fun.

The sticker is easy to use and can be customised with your answers – whether you want to change ‘yes’ and ‘no’ (the default) to, well anything that will fit in the character limit, or even switch it up with emoji options instead of text ones.

Polls can be used for market research and they also help followers to feel engaged and like their opinion matters to your brand too. Can’t decide what colour to paint your office wall? What shoes to wear for a big talk? Which design to launch first? Whether to have a cake or a biscuit?! A Poll is what you need! Generally, you’ll also see a good response when you use the Poll sticker (and you ask a good question of course!) as it’s easy and fast for people to engage and give you their opinion.

#5 Not sure what to do? Want an opinion? Ask a Question

Want to know what your next podcast should be about? What people want to know about? A great boxset to binge watch? Questions that your audience want answered during your Instagram Live with a special guest? Questions allows you to gather and organise all this information with ease (and without you having to remember who DM’d you when and said what!)

Another perk of the Questions sticker is that you can respond, via Stories or through private message, to that person. So if you decide to use the Story as a way to promote a product or service, you can then contact that person directly to give them more information or the link where to buy, for example. This is particularly useful for businesses not approved for Instagram Shopping or who are service based.

Using Question responses, if relevant, as additional Story content can be real gold too. Not only do you get the information, but the chances are that if one person has that query, others might do too.

#6 Invite the connection with DM Me

Yes, we know that the box at the bottom of each Instagram Story allows people to send a DM, but this sticker with its very obvious call to action can be a great way to encourage that connection with minimal effort.

If you’re talking about a service or product or cause and want to give people the ‘permission’ to reach out and ask more questions, the DM sticker is a great way to do that. More than that, if you tap on the dice icon when you apply this sticker, it’ll add an extra reason for people to DM you as it has some suggestions that you can use if you like.

#7 Build hype for a big launch, increase entries for a competition, or get people excited about a sale with Countdown

Big launch? Competition? Special offer? Sale? The Countdown sticker is a great part of any teaser campaign.

Not only does the sticker show people how long they need to wait for whatever you have planned, but the Countdown can also be shared to other people’s Stories and they can turn on a reminder for when the countdown is coming to an end.

With this sticker, don’t be tempted to overuse it – use it when you really want to make that big impact. Encourage people to set it to remind them and to share to their Stories too, but this all becomes a lot easier if they’re also passionate or excited about what is going to happen when the countdown ends!

#8 Gauge opinion with the Slider

Another fast engagement tool to help you gauge a reaction to something you share on Stories and, to allow people to feel involved and connected to what’s going on with you.

With the Slider, you can ask the question that requires the slider to be used, but you can also change the emoji selected to one of the 15 at the bottom of the screen with ease, or tap the + sign and choose any emoji you want.

The different emoji you select will obviously depend on your desired reaction, but again it’s a brilliant way to gauge public opinion on something, and you can see the results to inform you about whether a product, service, view, or whatever the Slider has been used to ‘rate’ goes down well with your customers.

There are a lot of ways to use the Slider tool, and to inform decisions from a commercial point of view too. It’s not as decisive as a simple Poll, but does give people more options depending on where they move the slider. If you wanted, you could even use the text tool to add markers along the length of the slider to confirm what they meant by their response.

#9 Gamify you Stories with a Quiz

The Quiz option can work well for brands and influencers – the only thing to keep in mind is that there’s, allegedly, only one right answer – so if you want to use it as more of a multiple choice question option vs. a quiz in the purest form, make sure you write some copy confirming that there’s no right answer!

With Quiz, you can add your own question and up to four answers, or for a bit of fun, tap the dice and Instagram will suggest some questions that you could ask your audience. Just tap on the letter that corresponds to the correct answer after you’ve populated the options, and you’re all set. And don’t forget you can change the colour of the question background too – just tap on the colour wheel at the top.

This feature can be used really well in a few different ways. If your brand is celebrating a big birthday or milestone, doing a quiz to see how well your audience know you could be a great use of it. Want to test people’s knowledge around a subject you coach on or teach around? A quiz is great. How about doing a quiz following an Instagram Live where you’ve given a training or interviewed a special guest? You could even run this as a competition if you wanted to (you can see who got the answers right by swiping up too).

#10 Share the brands you love or work with (and make it easy for others to see what they’re all about)

The perfect way to shout out a business you love, with just a little bit more context than a simple tag.

When you use this sticker, you can essentially tag users with business accounts on Instagram, but you also have the option to display three posts from that user’s account below their tag, which can help inform your followers before they tap through. If you tap the sticker, you can also just have their account name displayed with the Support Small Business icon above it.

What’s more, you can tag more than one small business. So if you want to do a #smallbusinesssaturday shout out, or even a #followfriday for your favourite business accounts, or accounts you work with, the Support Small Business sticker is a great way to do this.

#11 Make shopping even easier

Any time you can reduce the number of steps it takes for a potential customer to get to where you’d like them to be, you should take it with both hands. The Instagram Product sticker allows you to do this if you’re a product based business.

Before this can be used, the account must be approved for Instagram shopping and the set up been completed.

When you’ve done this, it’s easy to add the Product sticker to your Stories as you go. Whether you share your feed posts up to Stories and add a Product sticker, create specific videos and images that make the product you want to tag really stand out, or even use the Product sticker on Stories you share from customers, the Product sticker can be a really useful one.

The stickers listed above can really help your followers to take the actions you want them to on your Instagram Stories, and can also encourage them to reach out and connect with you too. By adding clear signposts to Stories, you’re adding a native call to action to help encourage purchases, the discovery of new accounts, your discovery and so much more.

And don’t think that these are the only stickers you can add. Inside the stickers tab the volume of emojis, GIFs and other stickers is quite staggering. These add context, personality and fun to your Stories and shouldn’t be overlooked. They can really help to enhance your brand, help followers feel close to you, and allow Stories to work for you on a commercial level too.