After launching an initial test of the option in December last year, Twitter is now giving all iOS users to capacity to share tweets direct to Instagram Stories, providing another way to interact with tweet content.
As you can see here, now, when you go to share a tweet, you’ll see Instagram Stories as an option, which, when tapped, will add your chosen tweet into a blank Instagram Camera frame, which you can then edit as you see fit, be it with your own image or video, or the available background and editing options in the app.
That provides more capacity to share tweets, in more places, which could help to boost interest in the platform, while also addressing a common means of tweet re-distribution, given that many people were already doing this via screenshots.
Though as pointed out by reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong, the tweets that you do share in Instagram Stories are not tappable, so you can’t actually drive traffic back to your tweet via these shares. Which seems like a missed opportunity – but still, it’s a more integrated, direct way to re-share tweet content, which will save people time, and provide more means to engage with tweets (the issue here may also be that Instagram doesn’t provide off-platform links in Stories, other than ‘Swipe up’ links).
The next phase, then, is native Instagram integration back to Twitter, which would enable you to re-share full IG posts via tweet, as opposed to only being able to add a link to the original. Instagram hasn’t provided direct Twitter integration since it disabled Twitter card preview support back in 2012, which makes it annoyingly difficult to share content between the two apps.
But now, with the two apps mending bridges, maybe that will lead to the next level of cross-posting, with Instagram posts fully integrated and formatted in-line.
There’s been no direct discussion of this happening, at least not publicly, but we did get a slight glimmer of hope earlier this year when Instagram chief Adam Mosseri and Twitter Product Lead Kayvon Beykpour seemed to express at least some interest in the idea.
But right now, it’s Stories-only, and with some limitations. But still, if you’re keen on any of your tweets, you can now re-use them, without having to screenshot and reformat.
