How to Pin Stickers & Emojis in Place in an Instagram Story Video

Learn how to pin stickers in your Instagram stories in just a few simple steps.

Instagram introduces new features so frequently, it's hard to keep up!

Around April of this year, Instagram released a new feature allowing users to pin emojis, stickers, and text in place during an Instagram Story video. Luckily, it's an easy to use feature once you know it exists...

For example, if you add the crown sticker in a moving video, you can pin it in place on someone's head (in theory), so even if the camera moves, the sticker stays in place (ish).

Honestly, it's a little wobbly, but it's a pretty cool feature.

How to Pin Stickers, Emojis and Text

1. Open your Instagram stories and film a video.
2. Add the text/sticker/emoji on the video.
3. Once in place, press firmly on the object (hard press), and a pin screen will appear.
4. There will be a bar at the bottom with where you can skim through the video the find the perfect spot for your emoji.
5. Move your object to exactly the right spot of the frame.
6. Click "Pin."

Six steps sounds like far too many, and it's really not all that complicated. Watch my one-minute video above for a quick look.

I took this video as a side-by-side to make it even easier to follow along. On the left is a screen recording and on the right is a video of my phone IRL.

If you're not happy with the result, you can hard-press the object again and re-do your pin.

Does this work for text, too?

Yes! This works for any object. So far, I haven't run into anything I can't pin.

Stickers

Text

Emojis

Gifs

Location geotags... and more! It's the same exact steps.

Looking to get creative?

I see most people using this feature to cover their child's face (5 stars for internet privacy) or pin hats/glasses/etc in place on a person.

But, the options are endless.

One of my favorite applications for pinning text comes from comic creator Nathan W. Pyle. Check out his pigeon stories (you have to see it to understand).

For me, I blog about makeup quite a bit, so sometime I'll use the pin feature to add product name labels or brand tags to a moving video rather than having it appear as static text throughout the entire video.

In the sample story I created in my video tutorial (embedded above), I hid an emoji in my open closet.

Surprise!

If you're going for a comedic effect, try pinning a selfie sticker.

What's a selfie sticker? Glad you asked.

When you click the sticker icon at the top of the app screen (the square icon with a peeled back corner) there is a camera icon option.

Tap the camera and take a photo of yourself. Voila!

Once you've taken a photo, you can pin your face in place like any other object.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this work on pre-recorded video?

So, we all know you can use video from your camera roll in your Instagram stories, so the question is, does pinning work on this videos?

I don't know the official answer on this one, but I have to say, I myself have had this not work on pre-recorded videos. I just tried a new video to be sure, and it did not work for me.

Why don't I have the pin feature?

I assure you, you do. This feature is no longer in beta testing and has been released to ALL Instagram users.

Place your object and then hard-press on it. Not just a tap, or a light hold. Press firmly!

Why isn't my pin working?

As I mentioned before, this feature is a little wonky. Sometimes it works perfectly, sometimes it glitches, and sometimes it sorta-kinda-maybe works.

It's not perfect. And it's probably not you!

The most common thing I hear is the object is never pinned in one spot. It just moves around and eventually makes its way to the pinned location.

Unfortunately, there's no good fix other than try pinning your object again or try taking a new video.

Read for more Instagram tips? Learn how to create killer Instagram highlight covers or learn how to add a line break to your Instagram caption.