How to Add Lyrics to an Instagram Story

Adding bouncing, animated song lyrics to your Instagram Story is a simple and effective way to make your content more dynamic and stop your followers mid-scroll. It adds a layer of personality, sets a visual mood, and even makes your Stories accessible to people watching with the sound off. This guide will walk you through exactly how to do it using Instagram's built-in Music sticker, plus some creative tips and troubleshooting for common problems.

How to Add Lyrics to an Instagram Story: The Step-by-Step Guide

The easiest way to get those perfectly synced lyrics on your Story is by using the Music sticker. Instagram has a massive library of licensed songs complete with time-synced lyrics, allowing you to create a professional-looking effect in just a few taps. Here’s how it works.

Step 1: Create a New Story

Start by opening the Instagram app and swiping right or tapping the plus icon (+) in the top left corner, then selecting "Story." You can now either take a photo or video directly, or swipe up to choose one from your camera roll. This visual will serve as the background for your lyrics.

Step 2: Access the Sticker Tray

Once you have your photo or video ready in the Story editor, tap the sticker icon at the top of the screen. It looks like a square smiley face. This will open the sticker tray, where you'll find options for polls, GIFs, locations, and more.

Step 3: Select the "Music" Sticker

In the sticker tray, find and tap the sticker labeled "MUSIC." This will open Instagram's music library. You'll see a list of popular songs in the "For You" tab, or you can use the "Browse" tab to sort by genre or mood. If you have a specific song in mind, use the search bar at the top to find it by title, artist, or album.

Step 4: Choose Your Song

After finding your track, tap on it to add it to your Story. Important: Not every song in Instagram's library has the lyrics feature enabled. If a song has available lyrics, a "Lyrics" label will typically appear next to its name in the search results. If you select a song and don't see any lyric formatting options, that means time-synced lyrics are not available for that specific track.

Step 5: Pick Your Lyric Display Style

Once you've added the song, Instagram will immediately show you several options for how the lyrics can appear. You can swipe through a few different styles at the bottom of the screen:

• Classic bouncing karaoke-style font
• A modern typewriter animation
• Large, bold text that fills the screen
• A more subtle, smaller font
• Or, if you don't want lyrics, you can opt for the song title and artist to be displayed in a small sticker or a larger album art display.

Step 6: Select the Song Snippet

Using the timeline slider at the bottom of the screen, you can scrub through the song to find the exact 15-second clip you want to feature in your Story. As you move the slider, the lyrics on screen will update in real-time, so you can pinpoint the perfect moment. Tap the "15" icon on the left to adjust the duration of your clip, from 5 seconds up to the full 15 seconds (for photos) or the length of the video clip.

Step 7: Customize the Color and Placement

With your lyric style and song clip selected, it’s time for the final touches. Tap the color wheel at the top center of the screen to cycle through different color options for your text. For total customization, you can tap and hold the eyedropper icon on the far left of the color options, then drag it over your background image to perfectly match the color of the lyrics to an element in your photo or video.

Finally, use two fingers to pinch and zoom the lyrics to make them bigger or smaller, and drag them anywhere on the screen. Tap "Done" when you're happy with how it looks.

Why Bother With Lyrics? Using Music for Better Engagement

It might seem like a small detail, but adding lyrics elevates your content from a simple picture with background music to a more immersive experience. Here’s why it matters:

• It captures attention immediately. The animated, bouncing text is hard to ignore. It makes people pause and watch what's happening instead of just tapping through to the next Story.
• It tells a better story. The right lyric can add emotional depth, humor, or context to your photo or video, conveying a message faster than just a caption might.
• It’s accessible. A huge number of people watch Stories with their phone on silent. Lyrics allow them to engage with the song and understand the vibe you're creating without needing to turn the sound on.
• It builds brand personality. Sharing music is a great way to express the personality behind your brand or personal account. It helps your audience feel more connected to you by sharing a common interest.

Troubleshooting: "Why Can't I Add Lyrics?"

Sometimes things don't go according to plan. If you're running into issues getting the lyrics feature to work, it's often due to one of these common reasons.

Problem #1: "The music sticker or the song I want is missing."

This is the most common issue, especially for Business Accounts. Here’s the breakdown:

• Business Account Restrictions: Due to music licensing agreements, Instagram Business Accounts have a severely limited music library filled mostly with royalty-free, generic tracks. You won't find most popular, commercial songs here. To access the full library, you can switch your account type to a Creator Account. This still gives you access to professional insights and tools but comes with the full licensed music library. To do this, go to Settings and privacy > Creator tools and controls > Switch account type.
• Regional Restrictions: Music licensing is complex and varies by country. The music sticker feature, and certain songs, may not be available in your region.
• App Version: Make sure your Instagram app is updated to the latest version. An outdated app might not have all the current features.

Problem #2: "I can select the song, but there are no lyric options."

This simply means that while Instagram has the license to let you use the song, they don't have the corresponding license for the time-synced lyrics. It’s an all-or-nothing situation for that track. Unfortunately, there's no way to force the lyrics to show up if they're not provided in Instagram's system.

Creative Workaround: How to Add Lyrics for *Any* Song

So, what do you do if the song you love doesn't have lyrics on Instagram, or if it isn't in their library at all? You can create your own lyric video using an external app and upload it to your story.

Using a Video Editing App (like CapCut or InShot):

1. Find the song: Start with the song you want to use.
2. Find the lyrics: Search for the lyrics online (e.g., on Genius or Apple Music).
3. Create your video: Open a video editing app on your phone. Start a new project with your background photo or video clip. Use the app’s text tool to manually type out the lyrics. Most apps allow you to time the appearance of each line of text precisely with the music, and many offer cool animations to make the text pop.
4. Add the music (if possible): Some apps let you add music from your local files or their library. If not, you can use a screen recorder to capture a recording of your screen from Spotify or Apple Music (with the lyrics displayed) and sync it later.
5. Export and Upload: Once your custom lyric video is complete, save it to your camera roll. Then, open Instagram, create a new Story, and upload your masterpiece. You'll have perfect, custom-animated lyrics for any song imaginable.

This method takes more effort, but it gives you complete creative control over the font, animation, and timing, allowing you to create something truly unique that stands out from a standard story.

Final Thoughts

Adding lyrics to your Instagram Stories is a fast and fun way to boost engagement and make your content more compelling. Whether you use the simple built-in Music sticker or get a little more creative with external apps, mastering this feature gives you one more tool to help stop the tap-through and capture your audience's attention.

Thinking about how to weave these creative elements into a consistent content schedule is the next step. When my team and I designed Postbase, we focused on building a tool around modern content formats. Our visual calendar lets you plan out everything - from Reels to TikToks and, yes, even your daily Stories - so you can see your whole strategy in one place. We made sure it works seamlessly with video and mobile-first content so you can spend less time fighting with clunky software and more time actually creating.