Want to level up your Instagram Stories? Make them with Canva.

Do you want to improve your engagement rate on Instagram? If so, you’ll probably want to share more interesting content on your Stories. The amount of creative freedom this feature gives you has increased significantly over the years, and you don’t even need to use Instagram to put everything together.

Canva is one of the most popular graphic design tools on the market. Its low barrier to entry makes it excellent for creating Instagram Stories that are aesthetically pleasing and unique.

In this article, we’ll talk about Canva’s Instagram Story-making features. You’ll also discover the top benefits of using this tool.

Canva’s Instagram Story maker isn’t a standalone app; instead, we’re talking about the suite of tools you can use on Canva to make Instagram Stories.

On the Canva homepage, you’ll see a tab titled Instagram Story. You’ll have a blank canvas to work on; it’s already resized for posting on the social media platform.

You can use Canva’s Instagram Story tools on your computer, which is what we’ll do in this guide. However, you can also use your smartphone or tablet if you’d prefer.

Now that you know what Canva’s Instagram Story maker is, let’s look at the different things you can do using this tool.

Canva’s Instagram Story maker has several ready-made templates to choose from if you want to streamline your workflow a little. You can make a selection based on various themes, including travel, entrepreneurship, and fashion.

You can choose from these designs by going to the toolbar on the left. Alternatively—if you’re looking for something specific—you can type keywords into the search bar. Once you’ve picked a ready-made template, you can customize the visuals and text to fit your needs. You can also change the fonts, colors, and more.

If you want to get a little more creative and have complete control over how your Story looks and feels, but you find software like Photoshop a little too complicated, you can make your content from scratch. Once you’ve selected the Instagram Story tab on the homepage, you’ll have a completely blank canvas to make whatever you want.

Canva has several tools you can pick from to customize your blank Instagram Story canvas. You can add different lines and shapes to fit your visuals in and even add audio, though you’ll need a paid subscription for the latter. You can also change the color of your Instagram Story background.

If you want to make your Instagram Stories stand out, you’ll need to try new things and have the courage to step away from what everybody else is doing. Let’s say that you’re used to only using photos or videos in your content; why not switch things up a bit?

Canva’s Instagram Story maker allows you to add photos and videos to each slide, along with illustrations; you’ll need a Canva Pro subscription to use videos, but many stock photos and graphics are included for free.

When you use Canva’s Instagram Story maker, you can also add YouTube videos directly to your canvas. If you’re looking for something specific, use the search bar; once you’ve found what you want, drag and drop it into the Story.

Having discovered some of the main things you can use Canva’s Instagram Story tools for, you’ll probably want to know about the benefits before creating an account. Below are three of the biggest perks.

If you want to make Instagram Stories with Canva, you’ll be pleased to know that you can access several features for free. You can upload your own photos with a non-paid plan, and you’ll also have access to several themes and stock images.

Canva PRO has its benefits though—namely, plenty more options. If you choose to upgrade, the good news is that the paid version is quite affordable; you’ll only need to pay $12.99 per month.

One thing that puts people off using non-native apps to create Reels or Stories is that sometimes, they’re pretty complicated to use. You can excuse complex apps if you’re making more long-form content, but you probably won’t want to spend as much time on short-form stuff—especially if it disappears in 24 hours anyway.

Canva’s user-friendliness is arguably the biggest reason that it’s so popular. You don’t have to have a degree in graphic design to navigate the app, and making Instagram Stories shouldn’t take you very long. Canva also doesn’t have a huge range of tools, making the learning curve much simpler when figuring out how to use the app.

Although Instagram gives you a lot of creative freedom to make unique Stories, you might want to look elsewhere to take your content to the next level. Canva has a broad range of tools that enable you to make original Stories and get more interactive with your audience.

Once you’ve made your Stories on Canva, you can still use Instagram’s suite of tools to add the finishing touches before publishing.

If you’ve made your Instagram Stories on the Canva smartphone app, all you need to do is save the posts to your camera roll and upload them to Instagram. If you made your Stories somewhere else, you can log into your account on the app and follow the same steps.

Alternatively, you can save your Story somewhere on your tablet or computer. From there, you can send the canvas to your phone via Bluetooth, AirDrop, or a cloud solution like iCloud or Google Drive.

Canva is one of the best third-party tools you can use to make Instagram Stories. It’s easy to use and versatile, and the app also has several features to help you get more creative. You’ll find several ready-made styles to choose from, in addition to starting from scratch.

Hopefully, this guide convinced you to consider making Instagram Stories on Canva. You’ll thank us later.

Danny is a freelance writer with over six years' experience in the content marketing space. He predominantly writes about photography, Adobe Creative Cloud, and YouTube for MUO. Based in Denmark, Danny has had his work published on multiple websites and is part of the MUO editorial team.

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