Instagram Now Allows Sharing Others’ Stories to Your Stories
Instagram Stories have always had a limitation in that they couldn’t easily be shared. If you tagged me in your Story, I could share your Story to my Story. Which was great for brands if they got tagged in someone’s Story and wanted to share it. But that was it.
But think about these scenarios:
Now, that’s changed!
Instagram is allowing users to share another public Story to their own Story.
For example, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram posted to his Stories about this feature rolling out. I was able to then share his Story to my Story since most of my audience would care about this. It was an easy share!
And, for brands, this is an additional opportunity for exposure to new audiences.
For most brands, Stories are incredibly high converting content. 500 million users consume Stories DAILY. They are a valuable part of an Instagram strategy and that has expanded in its functionality with this new feature.
With reach and engagement on the decline on Instagram, we’ll take any chance we can get to reach more people in our ideal audiences! Allowing others to share your Stories will mean more opportunities for reach and help from your existing audience to expand your presence on Instagram.
Of course, Adam Mosseri, warns that you shouldn’t count on this for a big shift in your reach. And, in general, he’s right. This feature isn’t going to all of a sudden gain you thousands of more views or followers. But it will get you more reach over time. If you’re creating quality content in your Stories, it will get shared by the people that appreciate it, and it will get in front of new people – ideally, people in your target audience.
This is part of your overall, long-term strategy on Instagram. Not a game-the-system tactic for overnight results.
How to Allow Others to Share Your Stories
In order to allow this feature on your Instagram account, follow these steps:
- 1Your account needs to be PUBLIC – ideally, you should be a professional account but a public personal account will have this option too
- 2Go to the 3-line (hamburger) button on your IG profile and scroll down in the Settings “How others can interact with you”
- 3Tap on the “Sharing and reuse” option
- 4From this menu, go to the “Stories to Stories” section and ensure the toggle is set for “Everyone”.
With this setting enabled, others will now be able to share your Stories to theirs!
How to Share Another Story to Yours
If you want to share someone else’s Story to your own Stories, tap on the Share icon (paper airplane icon) in the Story and choose the “+Add to Story” option.
From there, your Story will populate and you can add stickers, text, etc. like any other Story. It’s that easy!
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