When big tech players like Apple and Google went all-in on privacy, community marketing became the strategy of choice for many marketers. As brands increasingly treat marketing like a conversation, social media features like Instagram Stories offer a powerful way to build relationships.
But the temporary nature of Instagram Stories makes it nearly impossible for marketers to mine them for insights right out of the box. The solution? An app to save Instagram Stories for later viewing, analysis, and even use in advertising.
This article explains how smart marketers (like you!) can use the best apps to save Instagram Stories as part of their daily operations. By the time you get to the end, you’ll know what the best apps are on Android/iOS/Shopify, how to track your audience using Stories, and how to repost and repurpose user generated content (UGC) for marketing campaigns like a boss.
Instagram Stories — like Snapchat Stories — enable you to create and share ephemeral photo and Instagram video content. Unlike Reels, which is meant for polished video content, Instagram Stories typically document candid experiences.
You can save photos and videos directly from Instagram Stories or use the content you already have on your mobile device. Instagram Stories also allow you to enhance your content with music, text, and effects.
While each Instagram video clip is limited to 15 seconds, you can publish content back to back to allow for longer, multi-part Stories. Once published, your Story is only available for 24 hours — unless you save it on your Instagram profile as a Highlight.
Your followers can view your Stories in a few different ways.
A powerful marketing tool in their own right, Instagram Stories are a valuable source of audience insight and UGC that eCommerce brands can use to improve their advertising campaigns.
Every day, customers share Instagram Stories featuring brands and products they love. Traditionally, marketers had to manually collect this content to make it usable, but they inevitably missed the vast majority of posts — resulting in a colossal waste of potentially high-performing marketing assets. Having an automated app to save Instagram Stories can help.
Now there are tools like Archive App that automatically find, collect, and organize UGC for marketers. Click here to learn how Archive App helps eCommerce brands unlock the full potential of their community content.
Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s look at six of the best apps to save Instagram Stories available today.
Instant Save is an iOS app that allows you to quickly and easily save any Story in your feed or on an Instagram profile by copying the link and pasting it into the app. Once pasted, you can view the Story, repost it, or download it to your iOS device. With a 4.8 App Store rating, this free app is a popular choice for personal media management.
Insaver is the Android counterpart to Instant Save: a mobile downloader app that allows you to save social media content like posts, Stories, and Reels directly to your device with a link. The app is wildly popular, earning just below a five-star rating from over 800,000 users. That said, the app isn’t built to save videos and pictures at scale.
Aloinstagram is a website you can use to save Instagram Stories. Simply select “Download Instagram Stories” from the site’s homepage, and paste a username into the search bar. After a few seconds, the available Stories will load, and you can use the download button to save what you want. While still manual, Aloinstagram’s comprehensive and easy-to-navigate Content Download page is better for commercial applications.
Storysaver.net is another website that allows you to download Instagram Stories via a search bar and a username, but it also supports saving Highlights. After dropping in the username of choice, you can select either “Download Instagram Stories” or “Download Instagram Highlights.” The Instagram Story content will appear immediately with the option to download, but to see (and save) Highlights, you’ll have to click a few more times.
Story Downloader’s advantage is its clean UI. Mostly ad-free, this browser-based app for saving Instagram Stories offers a far less abrasive user experience than many alternatives. It also features a reasonably thorough FAQ at the bottom that speaks to most of the concerns you may have.
Stories IG is a lightweight web tool that lets you download Instagram Stories and share them across other social media platforms with minimal effort. Simply drop in the Instagram username of the account you’re looking to save Stories from and you’ll be presented with all the latest Stories they’ve published. It is a manual tool, however, and might not be the best choice for anyone looking to streamline their workflows.
Archive App is an automated content saving tool that enables marketers to keep a comprehensive library of all the Instagram UGC they care about — and leverage that content in their campaigns. Unlike the rest of the apps we’ve mentioned, Archive is a Shopify App built specifically for eCommerce marketers. Once configured, Archive will automatically save any Instagram video, photo, Story, Reel, etc., that tags your brand and saves it, forever, to the app. From there, you can browse using filter criteria like content type, post type, influencer, and date created. To give Archive App a free test run, download the app today.
Pro Tip: Instagram Stories are bursting with features that are great for grabbing viewers' attention, piquing their interest, and, most importantly, converting them into loyal customers.
Want to automatically save it when your brand gets tagged on Instagram? Check out Archive App today to leverage your online marketing presence.
The Instagram Stories feature has over half a billion daily active users, meaning marketers should give serious thought to how they can make it work for them.
With that in mind, here are five best practices that you can use in conjunction with the best apps to save Instagram Stories to grow your business.
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Chances are your customers have already crafted a slew of Instagram posts — Instagram photos, IG Stories, etc. — that feature your products. If you can find and leverage that content in your campaigns or post them to your Instagram profile, you’ll apply a multiplier to every metric you care about.
Along with providing killer creative, Stories can help you get into your audience’s headspace. Collecting and analyzing UGC can help you spot emerging trends, better understand your value proposition, and find new messaging to test. An app that lets you save Instagram Stories can be a huge help here.
To get your Stories in front of more eyeballs, you need to use the promotional tools that social media platforms provide like hashtags, lists, and tags. Getting the right content in front of the right organic audience as a way of seeding growth is often the first step in a truly viral post.
Instagram has created a whole set of stickers that are, frankly, fantastic at driving audience engagement on brand Stories. You can use poll stickers to ask people to weigh in on alternative product ideas, emoji sliders to quantify sentiment about a new feature, question stickers to drive an AMA, quiz stickers to gamify your Stories, and more.
One of the great things about Instagram Stories is that they take up the entire screen, meaning that the right creative can really pop, especially when it drives viewers towards a clear and actionable next step. Stories’ direct links or product stickers combined with some stellar product photos are excellent for converting viewers into buyers.
Whether it’s finding the Instagram video downloader of your dreams or learning how to leverage your Stories as an advertising channel, we hope that this list of the best apps to save Instagram Stories made you a bit more comfortable with this specific kind of digital marketing.
Mastering Stories is just the beginning. The Archive blog is full of cutting-edge advice on how to use Instagram — like exploring how community marketing will shape the future of advertising.
To learn more about how Archive helps eCommerce brands succeed during this shift, read our About page. To start saving Instagram Stories, try Archive App for free today.
You can use the iOS app Instant Save, the Android app Insaver, or the website Story Downloader to download other people’s Instagram Stories. Instant Save and Insaver just need a link to the Story to save it, while you’ll need a username for Story Downloader.
Archive App is an app to save Instagram Stories that automatically downloads every Story with mentions or tags you care about.
Stickers are one of the best ways you can connect with your audience using Instagram Stories. You can get feedback, run an AMA, and even quiz your audience with stickers.
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