Instagram Stories have quickly become one of the favorite tools on Instagram and are a big reason why people spend so much time on the platform.
Instagram Stories offer unique and exciting additional features such as filters, stickers, music, GIFs, and more! With easily changeable backgrounds and other interactive tools, they are the best way to ensure your content stays unique, enticing, and fun.
For those of you who aren’t sure how to change the background color on your Stories, we’ve got you covered!
Here’s everything you need to know about how to change the background color on your Instagram Story…
Why Change The Background Color On An Instagram Story?
It’s no surprise that changing the background color of an Instagram Story is a crucial part of creating a good Story.
Changing the background color gives you flexibility, at the same time allowing you to maintain your brand’s aesthetic. With Instagram automatically picking a background for your Stories, you could end up with an unappealing color.
This is because Instagram selects a color from the color palette of the image you’re posting. So, being able to change the color can help you avoid those dull, default backgrounds.
It also ensures you can keep all your Stories aligned and consistent with your brand by using your specific brand colors.
4 Ways To Change the Background Color Of An Instagram Story:
- Replacing the default background color with another solid color
- Changing the background color and adding an image to go with it
- Altering the background to an existing image in your gallery
- Making a change to the background color when reposting
1. Changing the Instagram Background to a Different Solid Color
Most of you may be aware that when you share a post, Instagram usually picks a default color for you.
Guess what, you don’t have to stick with this color! With a few clicks, you can easily change the background color of your Instagram Story.
Learn how to change the background color on an Instagram Story, with these easy steps:
- Open ‘Stories’
- Take a picture or video
- Click on the drawing icon, used for highlighting or selecting colors
- Select a color from the available options (or use the dropper tool to select a color from the image)
- Tap and hold on the middle of your screen for a few seconds
The background color will then change to the color you’ve selected.
The main thing to keep in mind when changing the Instagram background to a solid color is that the initial photo or Story will no longer exist. So, you’ll need to treat this Story (with a new background) as a blank canvas.
Once you’ve changed the color of the background, you can use the text tool to type a question or any thoughts you want to share with your followers.
If you want to know how to add an image or photo on top of this solid background, we’ll cover this next…
2. Changing the Instagram Background Color and Adding an Image
Another cool way to customize your stories is to change the background color and then add an image on top of that.
Here’s how to do it:
- Open ‘Stories’
- Take a picture
- Click on the ‘draw’ tool
- Select a color
- Tap and hold on your screen for a few seconds
- The new color will be applied as your background
- Leave Instagram for a second and go to your photo gallery
- Select the photo you want and click ‘copy photo’
- Return to Instagram and go back to Stories
- You should see a pop-up on the bottom left of your story, showing the image you just copied. If you don’t, simply click on the text tool and click ‘paste’ and the image will pop up.
This is a fun hack you don’t want to miss out on! Keep in mind that this copy/paste method can be used to move any image from your phone’s gallery onto your Instagram story!
3. Using A Background Image That You Already Downloaded To Your Gallery
For those of you who want to be more creative and don’t want to limit yourself to a single color change, this is how you use an existing photo or downloaded photo as your Instagram Story background…
- Open ‘Stories’
- Swipe up to access your gallery or tap on the gallery button
- Find the image you want to use as your background
- Select it and add it to your Story
- After you’ve done this, copy the image of your choice from your gallery using the same steps from the previous section. Then you can paste it on top of the image you’ve chosen as the background.
What’s cool about this is that your new background can be anything from an existing photo to stock images, gradients, or cool patterns.
4. Changing the Background Color When Reposting
Whenever you share a post to your Story, Instagram will automatically pick a color for your background. This is usually based on the color scheme of the post you are sharing. Sometimes you want to mix it up or change a dull color that Instagram has chosen.
To change this, you should do the following:
- Once you’ve selected the post you want to share, click the ‘draw’ button on the top right and choose the draw tool
- Choose the color that you want your background to be from the color palette at the bottom
- Now that you’ve chosen the color, tap and hold your finger down anywhere on the background until the color changes to your selection.
When sharing images from your feed or someone else’s, you can use the above process to pick the exact color you want and the image will remain unaffected.
Final Thoughts
While it may seem small or insignificant, learning how to change the background color on an Instagram story can indicate the difference between an amateur and a social media expert.
By constantly changing things up with new and fresh colors, your engagement is likely to increase and people are likely to come back.
For those who have a specific color scheme or tone, this is a great way to build on that, keeping your brand’s aesthetic consistent.