Virtual Photo Booths on Instagram Story

With the growing market of virtual photo booths, photo service companies seek to find the best platform to provide virtual photo booth services. Here’s why virtual photo booths on Instagram stories can be the next big thing.

Read on to find out how virtual photo booths can be incorporated to events and why Instagram is the best platform for it.

What is a Virtual Photo Booth?

A virtual photo booth is a photo booth service that is accessible online. This photo service has grown in popularity recently, with the growing numbers of activities and events being held online. Virtual photo booths come in the form of readymade filters and frames for online event guests to use when taking photos with their smart devices.

You can read more about Virtual Photo Booths in the previous article we published.

The Function of Instagram Story Filters

Instagram stories are one of the most commonly used Instagram function with more than 500 million users uploading Instagram stories daily. Instagram story filters were introduced in 2017, with basic filters made by Instagram for users to add to their photos pre-upload.

The popularity of the story filters grew in 2019, with the ability to enable creators to create their own story filters for Instagram users to use. Social media content creators, influencers and brands started to create and upload their own story filters for their users and fans to use. These story filters included photo editing presets, 3D effects, mini games and random generators. The Instagram story filter quickly became one of the most popular forms of content creation on Instagram in the last year.

How can Instagram Story Filters be used as a Virtual Photo Booth?

The question now, is how do photo service companies merge the two? A virtual photo booth’s purpose, is to create an online experience of instant print photo booths for online event guests to experience. This means creating pre-made filters and frames that can be added to smart devices for online event guests to use when taking photos.

Instagram story filters are the perfect function for virtual photo booths in that sense. By creating a unique Instagram filter for each event, the online event guests can take selfies and photos with the specially created filter on Instagram all throughout the event. This creates the same function as a physical photo booth, by allowing guests to leave the event, online or physical, with photos edited with specially designed frames and layouts.

Why Instagram is the Best Platform for Virtual Photo Booths?

Instagram stories are quick and easy to use. Filters can easily be shared through links, or through the the “explore filters” section on Instagram. Instagram filters are also conveniently added onto the user’s screen before taking photos. This means that the user can apply the story filter before taking a photo, which eliminates the need of post-editing. Many virtual photo booths are available through separate apps and websites and require post-editing. Instagram stories on the other hand, are instant and can be saved by the users pre and post upload.

Instagram also enables users to share stories and posts with hashtags and locations, which adds on to the advantages of the platform. This allows quick sharing and is convenient for event hosts to gather the images taken by the online event guests. These virtual photo booths are a great tool for marketing corporate events as well, by enabling live stream guests to have more participation in the online event by taking photos with the story filter.

Virtual photo booths are a great for online and live streaming event services like graduations, parties, corporate events, weddings and many more.

How do Creators Make Instagram Story Filters?

You must be wondering how Instagram story filters are created. Here’s how! Launched in 2018, Spark AR created by Facebook, is a platform all about access to augmented reality creation tools for creators. AR has been a huge part of social media platforms ever since, with the Snapchat dog filter being one of the first examples.

In 2019, Facebook opened up Spark AR to online users to allow content creators, influencers and brands to create their own 3D effects and filters for Instagram stories. Spark AR comes in a software where AR can be created by anyone at any level of difficulty and experience. Many creators from brands and social media have adopted this software and created Instagram story filters as part of their content creation base.

There are many tutorials on how to create your own Instagram story filter. Alternatively, photo service companies have picked up the service to design and create Instagram story filters for clients’ events.

Engage Us to Discuss on Your Next Photo Booth

Here at Vivid Snaps, meeting our customer’s needs and expectations are our number one priority. You can contact our project coordinators to discuss your next photo booth with us.