David Bridges
Key Highlights
- New Feature: Users can now share any publicly posted Story to their own Stories feed.
- Expanded Sharing: This option allows users to re-share Stories even if they are not tagged in them.
- Creator Credit: The feature aims to ensure original creators receive proper credit for their content.
- Engagement Boost: By promoting original content, Instagram seeks to enhance user engagement and reduce aggregator account influence.
Instagram has added a new way to amplify content, with users now able to share any publicly posted Story to their own Stories feed.
As you can see in this example, you’re now able to add any public Story to your own feed, with credit to the creator, so it’s essentially re-posting, but in Stories format.
Which will expand your capacity to amplify content, by exposing these Stories updates to your own followers. To be clear, this option has existed for some time for Stories that you’re tagged in, but you can now share Stories that you’re not tagged in as well.
Which is really an expansion of the re-post functionality that IG added back in August, which enables users to re-share Reels and feed-posts.
The thinking behind this is that by providing simple options to re-share the original post, it will eliminate the need to copy and re-post yourself, which will help to ensure that credit goes to the original creator. At the same time, measures like this could also negate the popularity of aggregator accounts, which Instagram has been actively seeking to disincentivize.
The more that Instagram can showcase original creators, the more incentive they’ll have to keep posting, and by eliminating the need to re-share content in other ways, which removes links to the originating account, that will build a more beneficial ecosystem for amplification and sharing.
And with only a small portion of users ever posting anything at all, keeping the credit flowing to creators is key to maximizing engagement.
As X noted a couple of years back, only 20% of creators ever post anything at all, with most X users simply reading their feed every day. This would be similar in other apps, and as people have moved away from public posting in recent years, in favor of private DM engagement, the number of people actually posting original content has continued to decline.
Which is why IG needs to keep them happy. As noted, it’s already taken action to reduce the presence of aggregator accounts, in order to ensure they don’t steal credit, and re-posts is another element within this, providing more direct options to boost creator content.
That will also mean more opportunities for brands, by getting people to re-share their Stories to their own feeds.
I’m guessing that some are going to abuse this, but IG is clearly confident that this won’t become overwhelming.
Clara Hastings
