Genius Instagram Stories tips – how to add countdowns, backgrounds and superzooms

WANT to buff up your Instagram game? There are some handy tricks you need to know.

We’ve put together a quick guide on some essentials you’ll need for Instagram Stories.

There are loads of ways to breathe new life into your Instagram Stories[/caption]

Here are four great tricks for Instagram Stories…

How to do a superzoom

Superzoom is a feature built into Instagram that rapidly zooms in.

It’s great for creating funny videos, and it’s easy enough to do.

Simply swipe along the bottom of Instagram from the Stories page, and you’ll find Superzoom among the camera options.

Then press and hold the shutter button and the camera will zoom in.

Sound effects will be added to the video automatically, but you can mute those using the normal method of tapping on the speaker symbol.

This works on both front- and rear-facing cameras.

Instagram is full of neat options[/caption]

Countdowns are one of the standard add-ons built into Instagram Stories.

Open Stories then swipe up from the bottom – or tap the smiley.

It’s in the same place you’d find the Location tab, polls, GIFs and like-meters.

You’ll find Countdown among the options, which you can add to a Story.

And if you’ve already made one for a Story, you’ll be able to re-use it in future uploads.

Filling the background with colour is very easy.

First open a story, then tap the pen in the top-right corner.

Next tap and hold on the screen for a few seconds.

This will immediately fill the screen with the colour that you’ve chosen.

It will be solid if you’ve used the marker, or transparent if you used the highlighter brush.

Remember that if your account is set to private, only people who follow you can view your story anyway.

But if you have a public account, your followers can see your story – including if it appears in Explore.

It’s also possible for anyone to see your story if you have a thread with that person in Direct.

To hide a story from someone, go to your profile, and then navigate to Settings.

Tap Privacy and then tap Story.

You can then select people to Hide Story From.

Choose the people you want to keep shut out, then tap done.