All over the world, Instagram Stories is quickly changing the way businesses connect with and inspire their communities – creating new opportunities for them to stand out in a fresh, ephemeral way. And with more than 50% of businesses having created a story in the last month¹, there's no doubt that it will continue to keep businesses top of mind in their customers' feeds.

As people spend more time on their mobile devices, businesses and brands are beginning to realise the potential of vertical video and its marketing capabilities – especially as this interactive, full-screen format is able to engage the attention of users like never before.

With the help of our Creative Shop team at Instagram, here are some of the different ways that businesses and brands can take advantage of the various creative tools on Instagram Stories and create engaging, vertical content for their audiences.

Utilise adverts in Stories' moving progress bar (at the top) to illustrate a moving contrast within your advert. This timekeeper is a great way to watch how people consume organic stories.

As all video adverts in Stories play for a maximum of 15 seconds, we're seeing businesses and brands embrace short-form video with creative that pairs well with this context.

The profile photo (in the top left) is a simple yet great way to motivate users to navigate and learn more about your business.

With the ability to add text and emojis to Stories, these creative tools are an easy way to customise native adverts in Stories and make your account stand out.

We're seeing loads of businesses and brands use the pause feature to interact with people and share something fun within their adverts.

Brands are always looking for fresh ways to connect with their customers and help them learn more about a product or service. That's why we launched links in adverts in Instagram Stories earlier this year.

With over 250 million daily active users on Instagram Stories who follow and share their passions every day, it's been amazing to see all the creative ways that businesses have been using Instagram Stories – enabling brands to directly impact their business objectives, whether these be sales and promotions, new product launches or education through tutorials.

To learn more about reaching your audience with the creative capabilities of adverts in Stories, click here.