How to Put Someone's Instagram Post on Your Story

Sharing an Instagram post to your Story is one of the most effective ways to fill your content calendar, engage your community, and show some love to other creators. This guide will walk you through exactly how to do it, from the simple one-tap method to creative customizations and what to do when you can't find the share button. We'll cover everything you need to know to make your shared content look great and perform even better.

Why Share Someone's Post to Your Instagram Story?

Before getting into the step-by-step, it’s helpful to understand why this is such a powerful tactic for growing your brand. Sharing isn’t just about filling space, it's a strategic move that builds community and credibility.

• Highlighting User-Generated Content (UGC): When customers or fans post about your product, service, or brand, sharing it to your Story is a powerful form of social proof. It acts as an authentic testimonial, showing potential followers that real people love what you do. For example, a local coffee shop sharing a customer’s beautiful latte art photo is far more compelling than just another one of their own posts.
• Building Relationships and Community: Sharing a post from a follower, a partner brand, or another creator in your niche is a simple act of acknowledging their work. It builds goodwill, encourages them to engage with you in the future, and shows your audience that you’re connected to the broader community, not just broadcasting your own message.
• Curating Valuable Content: You don’t have to create everything yourself. Sharing a helpful tip, an inspiring quote, or a stunning photo from another account that aligns with your brand provides value to your followers. It positions you as a trusted source of information in your industry, not just a seller of products.
• Easy and Authentic Content Creation: Let's be honest, creating original content every single day is hard. Sharing relevant posts to your Story is an elegant and effective way to maintain a consistent presence without burning out.

The Standard Method: Using Instagram’s "Add Post to Story" Feature

In most cases, sharing a post to your Story is a simple, built-in feature. Instagram makes it easy, as long as the account you're sharing from is public and has sharing enabled in their privacy settings.

Follow these steps:

1. Find the Post You Want to Share: This can be any photo, video, or Reel from a public Instagram feed.
2. Tap the Paper Airplane Icon: You'll find this icon directly underneath the post, next to the comment bubble.
3. Select "Add Post to Your Story": A menu will pop up from the bottom of the screen. The very first option should be a blue and white plus button labeled "Add Post to Your Story." Tap it.
4. You're in the Story Editor: The post will now appear as a sticker inside your Instagram Story editor. From here, you’re ready to customize it before publishing.

How to Customize a Shared Post to Make it Your Own

Just dropping a post into your Story is fine, but adding your own creative flair and context is what makes it truly engaging. The Story editor gives you plenty of tools to work with.

Change the post's appearance

By default, the shared post appears in your Story as a clean sticker with the post itself and the original creator's username below it. If you simply tap on the post sticker, you can toggle to a second style. This version hides some of the image and puts a larger preview of the original caption text on display, enticing viewers to tap through to read more and see the full post.

Resize, move, and rotate

Just like any other sticker in an Instagram Story, you have full control. Use two fingers to pinch and zoom to make the post sticker smaller or larger. Drag it around the screen to position it perfectly, and twist with two fingers to rotate it to any angle. This is great for making space for your own text, GIFs, or other elements.

Change the background

Instagram automatically generates a two-tone gradient background based on the dominant colors in the photo you’re sharing. While it looks nice, you have other options to make it align with your brand's aesthetic.

• Solid Color Background: Tap the "Draw" tool (the squiggly line icon) at the top of the screen. Select a color from the bottom. Then, press and hold your finger anywhere on the screen for a few seconds. The entire background will fill with that solid color. Keep in mind this will cover the post sticker, so you’ll want to do this before adding text or other stickers on top.
• Use a Photo from Your Camera Roll: This is a popular trick for creating a branded feel. Find the photo you want to use as a background in your camera roll and copy it. Go back to the Instagram Story editor. A little "Add Sticker" pop-up should appear with the image you just copied. Tap it to add the photo, then use two fingers to expand it until it fills the entire screen. Press and hold on the shared post sticker itself to bring it forward so it sits on top of your new background image.

Add Context with Tags, Text, GIFs, and Music

An uncommented share is a missed opportunity. Your audience follows you for your perspective, so give it to them!

• @Mention the Original Creator: Even though the post sticker already includes an @mention, it’s a best practice to add a separate, highly visible @mention sticker. This ensures the original creator gets a notification you shared their content, making it easier for them to engage or even reshare your Story to their own audience.
• Explain Why You're Sharing: Use the text tool to add a short comment. Are you sharing a customer photo to say thanks? Is it a product from another brand you genuinely love? Is it an inspiring quote that reflects your values? Tell your audience why it matters.
• Drive Engagement: Use interactive stickers like the Poll, Quiz, or Question sticker to ask your audience what they think about the post. This turns a passive view into an active engagement.
• Add Vibe: Use the GIF sticker to add some personality or the Music sticker to set a mood that complements the post's content.

What To Do if the "Add to Story" Button is Missing

Sometimes you’ll tap the paper airplane icon and notice the "Add to Story" option just isn't there. There are two primary reasons why this happens:

1. The Account is Private: You cannot share feed posts from private accounts, even if you follow them. This is a core privacy feature of Instagram.
2. The User Has Disabled Resharing: Instagram users can go into their settings (Settings >, Sharing and Remixes) and disable the option for others to share their feed posts to Stories. This is more common with photographers, artists, and creators who want to maintain tight control over where their content appears.

So what’s the workaround? The classic screenshot. However, doing this requires some etiquette to ensure you're giving proper credit and respecting the original creator.

How to Share via Screenshot (The Right Way)

If you absolutely must share a post and can't use the native feature, follow these steps to do it respectfully:

1. Take a Clean Screenshot: Make sure you capture the entire post clearly.
2. Crop It Neatly: Open the screenshot in your photo editor and crop out everything except for the post itself - your phone's status bar, the Instagram UI buttons, etc. You just want the photo and maybe the creator's username.
3. Upload to Your Story: Open the Instagram Story editor, swipe up, and select your cleaned-up screenshot from your gallery.
4. Manually and Prominently Tag the Creator: This is the most important step. Use the Text tool or the @Mention sticker to clearly tag the original account (e.g., "Incredible shot by @creatorname!"). Don't hide the tag or make it tiny. The creator deserves full credit, and your audience should know where the content came from.
5. Consider Asking Permission: For smaller creators or independent artists, it’s a great practice to send a quick DM asking for permission before you share via screenshot. It shows respect and helps build a positive relationship.

Final Thoughts

Sharing another user's post to your Instagram Story is more than just a content-filler, it's a fundamental part of building an engaging, community-focused presence on the platform. Whether you're using the simple "Add to Story" button or mindfully sharing a screenshot with full credit, this tactic allows you to showcase UGC, build relationships, and provide value to your audience with minimal effort.

Curating incredible content to share in your Stories is just one part of a great social strategy. To make a real impact, that curated content needs to sit alongside your own planned posts, Reels, and videos. To avoid the chaos of managing it all in real-time, we built Postbase, a social media tool designed for how content works today. Our visual calendar lets you plan and schedule all your content - including short-form video for Reels and TikTok - in one clean space, giving you a bird's-eye view of your entire strategy and helping you post consistently without the stress.