How to Share an Instagram Story to a Facebook Story

Sharing your Instagram Story directly to your Facebook Story is one of the simplest ways to streamline your content workflow and reach a wider audience. If you've been posting the same content piece by piece on both platforms, this guide will show you how to connect your accounts to do it automatically or one by one. Here’s exactly how to get it set up, troubleshoot common issues, and make sure your content looks great on both platforms.

Why You Should Share Instagram Stories to Facebook

Connecting your stories is more than just a time-saver. For brands, creators, and businesses, it’s a strategic move that comes with several benefits:

• Increased Reach and Visibility: Your followers on Instagram and your friends or followers on Facebook are not always the same people. Cross-posting instantly doubles the potential eyes on your content without any extra work.
• Saves Valuable Time: The most obvious benefit. Instead of creating and uploading content twice, you do it once. This frees you up to spend more time engaging with your community or creating your next great piece of content.
• Maintains Brand Consistency: Posting the same Story across platforms reinforces your brand's messaging, aesthetic, and voice. A consistent presence helps build brand recognition and trust with your audience.
• Maximizes Content Value: You put effort into creating engaging stories. Sharing them to Facebook ensures you get the most value out of every single poll, behind-the-scenes video, or promotion you post.

How to Automatically Share All Instagram Stories to Facebook

The easiest way to share your content is to set it and forget it. By enabling automatic sharing, every story you post on Instagram will instantly appear on your Facebook Story. This connection is managed through Meta's Accounts Center.

Here’s the step-by-step process:

Step 1: Go to Your Instagram Profile and Open Settings

Open the Instagram app and navigate to your profile page. Tap the three horizontal lines (the "hamburger menu") in the top-right corner to open the main menu.

From here, tap on Settings and privacy at the top of the list.

Step 2: Access the Accounts Center

Inside the settings menu, the very first option you’ll see is the Accounts Center, highlighted in blue. It often has a note below it saying, "Password, security, personal details, ads." This is Meta's central hub for managing your connected experiences across Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger. Tap on it.

Step 3: Check Your Connected Accounts

In the Accounts Center, look for the Connected experiences section and tap on Sharing across profiles. You should see your Instagram profile listed. If your Facebook account is already connected, it will appear here as well. If it's not, you’ll see an option to "Add accounts." Go through the steps to log in and link your personal Facebook profile or business Page.

Note: If you manage a Facebook Business Page, you need to connect your primary personal Facebook profile that has admin access to that page. You'll be able to choose the specific page you want to post to in the next step.

Step 4: Enable Automatic Sharing

Once your accounts are linked, tap on your Instagram account under the "Share from" section. This will open the management screen where you can control what content gets shared automatically.

You'll see two options under "Automatically share":

• Your Instagram story
• Your Instagram posts

Tap the toggle next to Your Instagram story. A pop-up might ask you to confirm this choice. Once you do, the toggle will turn blue, indicating that the feature is now active. From now on, every time you post a story on Instagram, it will automatically be shared to the Facebook profile or page you've connected.

How to Manually Share a Single Story After Posting

Sometimes you don’t want to share every single story. Maybe one is specific to your Instagram audience, or maybe you just forgot to turn on the automatic setting. No problem - you can easily share an individual story that’s already live.

Here’s how:

1. View Your Active Story: Pull up the Instagram story you want to share.
2. Find the Facebook Icon: At the bottom of your story screen, you'll see a small "Facebook" icon or a "Share to" button.
3. Tap to Share: Tap the Facebook icon. Instagram will ask for confirmation or give you options about where you want to share it. Confirm your choice.

Your story will now appear on Facebook. This manual method gives you more control and is perfect for moments when you want to be more selective about your cross-posting.

Troubleshooting Common Problems

Occasionally, things don't work as expected. If your stories aren't sharing correctly, here are a few common issues and their solutions.

Problem: My story didn't share to Facebook.

• Solution 1: Check your connection in Accounts Center. The most common culprit is a broken link between your accounts. Go back to Settings and privacy >, Accounts Center and make sure your Facebook account is properly connected. Sometimes you'll need to re-authenticate by logging in again.
• Solution 2: Confirm your share settings. Double-check that the "Automatically share" toggle for stories is actually turned on for the correct Instagram profile.
• Solution 3: Update your apps. An outdated app can cause glitches. Head to the App Store or Google Play Store and make sure both your Instagram and Facebook apps are updated to the latest version.
• Solution 4 (For Pages): Check your permissions. If you're managing a Facebook Page, make sure your personal Facebook profile still has admin permissions for that page. This connection can break if your permissions have changed.

Problem: Interactive stickers (polls, quizzes, music) aren't working on Facebook.

This is less of a bug and more of a limitation. While most stories transfer perfectly, some interactive Instagram stickers may not be fully functional when they appear on Facebook. For example:

• A poll sticker may show the poll question and answers, but Facebook users might not be able to vote in it.
• Some music stickers with licensed audio may not be available on Facebook due to different licensing agreements, causing the story to post without sound.
• Specialized stickers like "Add Yours" might not carry over the same functionality.

Why does this happen? The two platforms, while owned by the same company, are built on different codebases and have slightly different features and APIs. So, when a story is shared, it’s not always a perfect 1:1 translation. The visual elements will always transfer, but the interactive components can get lost.

The takeaway: If a story's entire purpose relies on an interactive sticker, think about posting it natively on Facebook to get the full effect you're looking for.

Best Practices for Cross-Posting Stories Content

Now that you know how it works, here are a few simple strategies to make your cross-platform content more effective.

1. Understand Your Audience on Each Platform

Even if you have followers on both channels, the demographics and user behaviors can differ. The casual, trendy content that pops off on Instagram might get less engagement on your more professionally-focused Facebook Page. While automatic sharing is efficient, always keep both audiences in mind. If a piece of content is hyper-specific to one platform's audience, consider skipping the cross-post for that one.

2. Think Before Using Interactive Stickers

Since some interactive elements don't transfer, it's good practice to think ahead. If engagement on a poll is your primary goal, you might just want that story to live on Instagram. Or, if you want feedback from both audiences, take an extra minute to create a similar native story on Facebook. This small bit of extra effort can make your content feel more intentional and less like an automatic, soulless repost.

3. Don't Set It and Forget It Forever

Automation is amazing, but it works best when you check in on it from time to time. Make a habit of checking your Facebook Story analytics. Are your cross-posted stories getting views and engagement? If a certain type of content consistently underperforms on Facebook, it might be a clue that your audiences on each platform want different things. Use that data to refine your strategy - maybe that means creating more unique content for Facebook or adjusting the type of stories you cross-post.

Final Thoughts

Connecting your Instagram and Facebook stories is a simple yet powerful way to save time, increase your reach, and keep your brand's presence consistent across platforms. Whether you choose to automate the process completely or share stories manually, the integration takes just a few minutes to set up and smooths out your entire content workflow.

At Postbase, our goal is to eliminate the friction from your social media management process so you can focus on creating great content. While story cross-posting is managed within the native apps, getting a clear picture of your entire content plan is where a tool built for today's social media landscape is essential. With our visual calendar, you can see all your scheduled Reels, Shorts, posts, and videos across all your platforms in one clean view, making it easy to spot gaps and keep your strategy aligned so you always know what’s coming up next.