Instagram is constantly adding new features to Story posts, which means there are lots of interesting ways to make your Stories stand out, from adding custom effects to creating custom cutout stickers for your posts. It’s pretty easy, yet not too many people know how to level up their IG Stories!

Add Music to Your IG Story

One easy way to add some personality to your IG Story post is to add some music. It’s really simple to do! Just click on the happy widget button at the top of the Story setup screen to see all of the widgets that are available to use. Open the “Music” widget by tapping on the button, and then a selection screen will pop up!

By default, the Music screen will open on the “For You” recommended tracks tab, but you can look up something specific using the Search Bar. You can also navigate over to the Browse tab to see other music recommendations based on genres and moods.

Changing the Background Color of an Instagram Story

Have you ever wanted to share an image to your IG Story, but thought that the background color was not quite right (or worse, some ugly gradient)? It happens all the time, and there’s something you can do about it! It just takes a few extra steps:

Add Multiple Photos in One Story

You can use the method I outlined above to add multiple photos to one single IG Story. With a custom background, you can make your own custom collages that have your personal touch. However, this can be a bit time-consuming and might not be for everyone.

Instagram also offers a “Layout” optionthat can help you create a photo collage in an IG Story. All you have to do is tap on Story and then tap on the Layout button located on the left side of the screen.

In Layout mode, you can take photos with the camera or add photos from your phone by tapping on the button in the lower left corner. You can also select different layouts depending on how many photos you intend to include in your collage. Once you’ve picked your images, hit the big check button, and you’ll return to the IG Story edit screen. You can pinch and grab the selected images to re-zoom and refine them to make the collage look perfect.

Instagram has been adding more fonts to the text tool, but sometimes, you want something a little more unexpected. Did you know that IG Stories supports external fonts that come from a Font Generator? Just copy the text in the font that you prefer and paste it into your Story using the text tool.

Another useful thing to add to an IG Story is a link! It used only to be an option for people with thousands of Instagram followers, but now anyone can add a custom link to their IG Story. All you have to do is open the widget menu and tap on the “Link” button. Just paste your URL into the link details screen and add some fun text for the Sticker that will be generated to add to your Story.

It only takes a little extra effort to make your Instagram Stories unique and customized to fit your personality. Be sure to save your Stories to a Highlight after you post them so everyone can enjoy your next-level Story artistry well after the 24-hour time window expires!