Instagram is renowned as one of the more visual social networks. Every post revolves around a picture or video. Instagram Stories combines multiple images together to tell a story (with a 24-hour half-life). All this creativity has led to an increased usage of Instagram overlay stickers to jazz things up.
Instagram overlay stickers started as a fun tool in Instagram Stories. However, people have expanded their use, and you even see them in traditional in-feed Instagram posts now.
Instagram overlay stickers can add a drop of color to brighten up even the most tedious and mundane posts. They give you a real opportunity to add personality to your Stories and posts.
Instagram Overlay Stickers
What are Instagram Overlay Stickers?
Instagram Overlay Stickers are graphic designs that you add to an image or video. They are technically an example of augmented reality (AR) – you are augmenting (hopefully improving) a real-world picture with your designs.
They are an integral part of Instagram Stories, helping you to “tell” your story by adding to the bare images/videos.
They can be everything from lightning bolts to fireworks to numbers to flowers. They can even be giant letters if it suited a particular image. There are also quite a few special Instagram overlay stickers included in Instagram Stories.
You can even use Instagram Stickers to ask questions and create polls.
You will find some Instagram overlay stickers on Instagram or create them yourself. Some influencers have even made their own packs which they sell to their fans.
Brands have now realized how popular Instagram overlay stickers are and are creating their own.
Of course, like everything, it is easy to have too many Instagram stickers, and it’s crucial to find the balance between everyday, potentially dull images, and posts littered with irrelevant stickers slowing things down and polluting the visual appearance.
Adding Instagram Overlay Stickers to Your Images
While you will find some Instagram overlay stickers in the Stories section of your Instagram app, you won’t want to merely rely on the basic core set available to everybody. Here are some ways you can obtain or create stickers that will make your posts zing.
The existing Instagram overlay stickers are intended to be used in Instagram Stories. However, if you make your own stickers, or buy pre-made ones from others, you can add them to your photos in any photo editor, meaning that you can use them in a standard Instagram post.
Using Stickers in Your Instagram Stories
Instagram designed stickers with Stories in mind and included quite a few in the app. You can add Instagram Stories to any image or video in your Story.
Whenever you want to add a Sticker tap on the Stickers icon.
The app will show you a range of stickers that you can select from to add to your image or video. Some of these include:
- Donation Sticker – you can use these to encourage people to donate to a selected nonprofit organization. When people see your donation sticker in your story, they can tap Donate to donate to your selected nonprofit.
- Quiz Sticker - write your own multiple-choice question and customize the answers. Your followers can vote and learn whether they got it right.
- Countdown Sticker - count down to any moment. When followers see your countdown sticker in your story, they can tap the arrow in the corner of the sticker to remind them or share your countdown to their Story.
- Questions Sticker - people can ask you a question on a sticker. People tap the sticker in your story, and then type a question for you to answer.
- Music Sticker – you can add a soundtrack to an Instagram Story with a Music Sticker. Once you tap to add a music sticker, you’ll be taken to a library of music. You can either search for a specific song or filter by genre. You can even filter by mood. When someone watches your story, they can tap the lyrics to learn more about the artist or listen to more of the song.
- Poll Sticker or Emoji Slider Sticker – use these to write your own question and customize the answers. People can respond by tapping an option you've provided or sliding the emoji you've chosen.
- Location Sticker - search for or select nearby options. These can be very useful for a business. When you tag a location on Instagram Stories, such as a business or a restaurant, your story will appear in the public stories feed of that location. So, anyone who searches for that location on Instagram will be able to see and engage with your story.
- Hashtag Sticker - when people see your story, they can tap the sticker and view the page for the hashtag you enter. When you tag your story with a hashtag sticker, other users will be able to see and engage with your story on that hashtag’s page.
- Current Time – takes the current time from your device
- Weather Sticker – gives the weather for your location
- Selfie Sticker – create a mini version of you to add to your pictures. You can add multiple different selfie stickers to a single image. Of course, there is no law that a selfie sticker must be of you – you could take a picture of something else for your selfie sticker.
- Mention Sticker – you can use these to highlight other Instagram accounts, in particular, any partnerships and influencer campaigns.
- GIF Sticker – as the name indicates you can add GIF graphics as stickers to your mages or videos in your Stories. These are excellent for adding visual flair to your stories. You can also highlight your links and CTAs with GIFs.
Buy a Pre-Designed Instagram Sticker Pack
Source: malloryonthemoon.gumroad.com
Instagram Stickers are now sufficiently popular that people are beginning to create and share pre-designed Instagram Sticker packs.
Influencers Mallory Joy (@malloryonthemoon) and Jasmine Lorimer (@jasmine.lorimer) have both created downloadable sets for their fans. Mallory uses the custom hashtag @thecreativestickerpack.
Once you purchase a sticker pack, you can add the stickers to your pics in a graphics editing app.
Design Your Own Instagram Overlay Stickers in an App
Of course, if you really want to be creative, there is no better way of gaining an original Instagram overlay sticker than to create it yourself. When it comes down to it, an Instagram Sticker is simply a graphic that you can add on top of an existing image. Therefore, you should be able to design one in any online graphics program.
A Design Kit clearly has Instagram stickers in mind. It advertises, “add simple design, brushes, text, and stickers to your photos! {anywhere + everywhere}”. You can use A Design Kit to add a wide range of colors, shapes, and fun designs to your images. It comes with packs of shapes that you can use as the starting point of your sticker. You can even pick colors from your image to use in your Stickers. You can gain inspiration by following #ADesignKit, which showcases designs made by other users of the app.
Over began life as a simple "text over photos" app for sharing goals and inspirational quotes. The product has evolved over the last seven years to allow you to customize content to make it your own. It includes a regularly updated and carefully selected library of on-trend videos, graphics, and font collections, with full access to stock photography. It includes many graphics stickers that you can add to photos and customize to meet your needs. You can resize, change the color, alter the opacity, and mask parts of any sticker.
Canva helps you create just about any type of design with ease. It includes a complete selection of social graphics templates, including some for Instagram posts. While it doesn’t have a specific section for Instagram stickers, you can easily create images in Canva that look like they have Stickers attached to them.
Industry heavyweight, Adobe Photoshop can be used to design anything. It’s costly for the average person, however, and you need decent computer hardware to use it to its potential. Adobe offers a cut-down app, Adobe Photoshop Sketch, that is perfectly useful for the everyday person wanting to design Instagram Overlay Stickers.
Remember Your Overall Personal Look
If you are just using Instagram for fun, sharing a few casual posts yourself, and looking at what your friends have uploaded, you probably don’t have to overthink your overall Instagram aesthetic. But if you use your Instagram for business, or indeed any serious purpose, you want to create a “brand look,” whether it be your business’ brand or your personal brand.
Instagram shows thumbnails of all your Instagram posts on your profile page. Ideally, you want your images to have a consistent look – whether it be by theme, design, or both.
This means that you may need to be careful when using Instagram overlay stickers. They may be distracting if you use too many of them. The sight of them en masse on your profile page may distract from everything else you have shared.
Of course, if you are trying to come across as fun, that may well be fine. However, it may not be suitable if you are trying to operate a formal corporate account.
