Why You Actually Should Share Your Instagram Post On Your Instagram Story
Some people think sharing an Instagram post on your Instagram story is redundant. Here’s why they’re wrong.
Entrepreneur
I am an avid Instagrammer, and I try to post almost every day. Accordingly, nearly every time I post a picture into my feed, I’ll share it on my Instagram story, too. Lately, however, I’ve seen some memes and tweets mocking people who do this, and I thought I’d demystify why exactly it’s important to do so.
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To some, it may seem redundant. I get the argument: your audience already saw your post in their feed, so they don’t need to see it in your story, too. But Instagram’s story functionality is an entirely different ballgame, and it’s important to do everything we can as online creators and entrepreneurs to beat the algorithm and earn exposure. It’s actually not redundant at all to publicize your latest post on your Instagram story. It’s simply a smart social strategy. Don’t believe me? Here’s why.
Reposting A Story With Screen Recordings/screenshots
Sharing Your Own Posts On Social Media
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Your Feed Does Not Give Equal Opportunity To Everyone You Follow
On both and Instagram, your news feed prioritizes your best friends, family members and favorite celebrities. Yes, they can tell which accounts those are. The algorithm generates your feed based on whose account you check the most often, who you have tagged content with and whose content you continuously engage with.
While this bolsters user experience by showing content you’re most likely to be interested in, it makes it hard for entrepreneurs to get exposure on their follower’s feeds. It’s great to always show up at the top of your mom’s or best friend’s feed, but let’s be real they’re going to check your feed and engage with your post regardless. Sharing your post to your story can increase the likelihood that more of your followers see it, even if you’re lower in their feed algorithm. I’m sure there have been times when you see a post in someone’s story that you didn’t see in your feed. Sharing to your story is a way to be on the offensive against the friends and family algorithm.
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How To Share An Instagram Post To Your Story

1. Open the Instagram app on your phone.
2. Locate the post you want to share in your Instagram story on your feed.
3. Tap the paper airplane icon.
4. The menu will appear.
5. Tap the first option, Add post to your story.
6. The photo or video post will automatically upload as a story draft.
7. Tap the icons at the top of the window to add stickers or gifs, draw, or type text.
8. Tap Your Story in the bottom left-hand corner to post, or select Close Friends if you want to share it less widely.
Quick tip: You can do this whether you’re finding a post on someone’s profile using the Explore page, or when it pops up directly on your feed.
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You Can’t Attach A Link To An In
When you’re launching a new company, introducing a new podcast episode, sharing a video or posting content that should be attached to a link, many accounts simply have to direct followers to the link in their profile bio. The captions of in-feed posts do not permit links, and rumor has it that trying to add a link can knock your post down a few pegs on the algorithm. Instagram has a vested interest in keeping users on their app for longer periods of time because of ads. So, they’ve done everything in their power to make leaving the app challenging.
However, if you have a verified account or over 10,000 followers, your account gains the “swipe up” functionality, in which you can add a link to a frame of your story and have viewers swipe up to learn more or engage. If it doesn’t seem fair that only accounts with 10,000 or more followers get this functionality, I hear you but it isn’t all sunshine and butterflies for accounts with large followings. According to Marketing Charts, stories with fewer than 10,000 followers reach a bit more than 9 percent of their followers through Instagram stories, whereas accounts with between 10,000 and 100,000 followers reach only about 5 percent of followers. The more followers you have, the harder it is to get engagement, which seems backward but is yet another reason why it’s worth sharing your post onto your story.
How Brands Can Use The Instagram Story Feature
Like any Instagram user, brands can use stories to keep their account active. But it can also be a valuable way to share behind-the-scenes content and build a deeper relationship with your audience.
If you create a brand-specific hashtag, you can find posts from people who already love and use your product or service. You can then share those posts to your stories to keep your audience engaged and notified about the brands movements.
This accomplishes two things: it allows you to showcase your brand or product to a wider pool of Instagram users. Second, it lets the brand showcase authentic user-generated content that shows how the products can be incorporated into the everyday life of a customer.
Quick tip: If desired, you can also add a link to a specific product, or your site, to make it easier for people to find the product that’s being displayed.
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How Brands Can Use This Feature
Many brands and influencers already use stories as a way to drive attention to their latest feed and promote their latest posts. This update will be a welcome improvement to this process by allowing users to directly link to their latest feed posts, rather than taking a screenshot of a post and manually adding it to stories.
As Brian mentions in the podcast, this could enable brands to use stories as a way to cross-promote their feed posts to their audience on stories people who may have potentially missed the post in the feed.
One of the reasons we love stories so much is that it can be used as cross-promote content and now users will be able to go from stories directly to your feed, he explained.
Hailley also drew comparisons between this feature and Twitters quote tweet functionality, where users can share content from the feed, but also add their own thoughts and context around it.
This is another exciting update from Instagram following the share to stories and live video chat announcements at F8 and it helps to better connect the feed to stories as well as providing a way for users to re-share some of their favorite Instagram content in a more public way than sharing with a couple of friends via a direct message.
These updates now available on Android and will be coming to iOS in the coming days.
What do you think to this release from Instagram? Will it change how you use Instagram stories for your business? Let us know in the comments ?
Stories Are Available For 24 Hours
If you care about engagement, you’ve likely experimented with prime posting times for your Instagram posts. Some advise around 5:00 p.m. when everyone is on the commute home, others say lunchtime, others say late at night. Most audiences are diverse in terms of their time zones, so a “best time to post” is subjective based on where in the world your followers are. This guessing game is alleviated by sharing your post to your story.
When you do, the story frame promoting your post is available for 24 hours and boosted every time you add another story frame. So, if someone across the world is just waking up and you posted eight hours ago, adding another frame to your story brings your story back to their story feed and increases the chance that they’ll see your post even if your original post is now buried far below all the “more relevant’ content in their feeds.
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Sharing Posts To Your Story
How To Share Feed Posts To Instagram Stories
To share feed posts to stories:
Any post shared to a story will include a link back to the original post and include the original posters username.
Only posts from public Instagram accounts can be shared to stories. If you have a public account and would like to opt-out from letting people share your posts to stories, you can do so within Instagrams settings.
In a recent episode of The Science of Social Media, hosts, Hailley and Brian discussed this update :
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