Instagram introduces new public story sharing option
A long-awaited change has landed in Instagram, providing users of the social media platform with a new way to share other people’s stories to their own timeline.
Instagram has stood apart from other social platforms in a number of ways, but notably in the lack of option for the sharing of other people’s public content. Now this is changing, helping to bring Instagram in line with other platforms, and giving users something they have been asking for for a very long time.
Instagram announced the change in a post to Threads, saying: “ever see a public story you’re not tagged in that you want to share to your own story? now you can”. The responses below the post show just how eagerly people have been awaiting this capability.
When sharing a story that has been publicly posted by another user, the original poster is credited so it is not possible to steal content and claim it as your own.
There are various things that this change represents. Firstly, it is worth remembering that it has been possible to share Stories that you are tagged in, but now this has been expanded to include those which you are not tagged in.
It boils down to being a reposting function, and it serves various functions. Not only does it provide a way to share your feelings about another user’s Story by sharing it yourself, it also gives fans a way to boost content by sharing it with their own followers.
With Instagram having already given users the option of reposting feeds and Reels, expanding this to Stories feels like a natural progression.
There have been clunky, awkward ways to repost Stories, but by directly supporting this option, Instagram has removed a friction point that stood in the way of engagement.
