You know what Instagram doesn’t like? People sharing their regular feed posts to Stories.

Well, maybe it’s not so much that Instagram doesn’t like this as it is that some users have complained about it, and now it’s testing a few different approaches to try and stop people from re-posting their regular, static updates to their Stories as well.

Instagram’s latest experiment on this front sees new labels added to Stories posts that have been re-posted from a users’ main feed.

As you can see in these examples, shared by TestingCatalog, posts re-shared from both the main IG feed and Reels may soon have labels attached to them explaining their origin.

Which is not a massive imposition, but it does make them look a little more cluttered, which could make users less keen to re-share posts in this way.

But it’s a far less extreme response than some of the platform’s other tests on this front. Back in January, Instagram blocked some users from re-sharing feed posts to Stories entirely, which prompted much discussion in social media circles.

At that time, Instagram explained to SMT that:

“We’ve seen from research that people prefer to see original photos and videos in Stories from the people they care about. The goal of our test is to better understand how people feel about this type of content and ultimately improve the Stories experience.” 

It seems that blocking people from sharing their posts may not have produced the desired result, which is why Insta is now trying a different approach. Which as noted, is less intrusive, but that could also mean it has less impact on the issue it’s trying to address.

But maybe it’ll help. It’s hard to know how big a problem this is, or how much, and how many, users actually dislike seeing feed posts in their Stories, but it can be annoying, at times, to see the same posts in your main feed repeated as you flick through your Stories list.

This new test doesn’t really seem like it will stop people looking to maximize their exposure by re-sharing in this way, but we’ll have to wait and see what Instagram finds.

Either way, as a strategic note, it’s worth keeping in mind that Instagram would prefer you don’t re-share your feed posts in this way.