I turned Instagram Stories into a flip book. Here are 5 tips to keep people watching.
A few years ago, the Toronto Silent Film Festival used several Instagram accounts to post different frames of various scenes from silent films. Users were instructed to switch to “slideshow view” and scroll through quickly. Curious, I followed the instructions, and voila! The pictures came to life.
When Instagram introduced galleries, this sort of flip book is the first thing that came to my mind. Could it be a new way to tell stories? The biggest problem with implementing the idea into galleries was that you could only post 10 photos; that doesn’t give the story much room to come to life.
However, Instagram Stories does not have this limitation. There’s no limit on the number of pictures you can upload. Tapping through photos is also faster than swiping, making it easier for the audience to get that flip-book effect.
With that in mind, I put Instagram Stories to the test to see if I could turn it into a flip book, and, more importantly, to see if this format could be used to tell a story effectively.
Here are some lessons I learned:
1.Think in photos, but capture movement with video. Since a flip book portrays movement, one of the challenges I had was finding a way to capture each frame. I originally tried taking a series of shots using a shutter speed, but the pictures ended up a tad blurry, and some of the effect was lost. I found that putting a short video into Photoshop and rendering it into a photo sequence created images of much better quality. Then, I used videos to bookend my posts.
2.Don’t leave your audience in the dark. Let people know what they are going to see and what to do. I often uploaded a blank background with the caption “click through quickly to see the move in action.” I found it got people to continue tapping through the story.
3.Less is more. Keep the action short. On my second attempt, the video was 10 seconds, so the number of still frames was in the hundreds. I got the move down to 35 photos, but that’s still a daunting number for a user to tap through. I found I could cut a 3-second video into 10 shots. Remember that you have other videos and/or photos you are adding before and/or after the flip-book series. The less tapping a user has to do, the more likely they are to continue watching. I know if I see someone has a super long story uploaded, I’m bailing quickly. Ain’t nobody got time for that!
4.Make use of your captions. Back to my first attempt at the flip book: I simply uploaded the sequence of shots — no captions, no words, no info. The number one piece feedback I got? “Cool idea, but why am I watching this?” That’s when I started experimenting with captions. I found the most effective use was having the captions develop as the pictures continued their sequence. Users would have to continue clicking to see what the sentence said. Yet another incentive for your audience to keep following the story until the end!
5.Time is of the essence. Instagram Stories only allows you to use photos or videos that have been added to your library within 24 hours. But there’s a hack! If you upload the video and/or photos to Photoshop and render them on your desktop (no need to edit unless you want to), the images and videos will be saved as new file created that day. You can then add the images to your phone, and presto! They’re allowed on Instagram Stories.
The verdict? I’d say a flip book is a fun and interesting way to tell a story. Since the story disappears in 24 hours, extremely important information may not be the best way to utilize the flip book. Instead, try a weekly tip where you teach your audience something or perhaps you find out it’s a fun holiday, such as “National Pancake Day,” and decide a fun fact or little piece of info would make a good post. The flip book is a great way to keep people clicking and watching your Instagram Story.
And last but not least: Be creative and have fun! You could turn almost anything that moves into a flip book, so play around with it.
