Adam Mosseri, Instagram chief, just debunked a popular engagement hack: reposting your own feed posts to Stories won’t meaningfully increase their reach.
Despite being widely used by Creators, reposting to stories might not be the engagement hack we were all hoping for.
Speaking during his weekly Q&A on Instagram, Mosseri shut down the idea pretty clearly: sharing your post again in Stories doesn’t give it a second life.
“You can definitely share your own post to your Stories… but it’s not going to meaningfully change your reach overall,” he explained.
Feed still does the heavy lifting
The reasoning is simple.
Feed posts have far more opportunity to travel. They can be recommended beyond your followers via Explore and other surfaces, while Stories are mostly confined to your existing audience and disappear after 24 hours.
In other words, reposting to Stories might increase visibility among people who already follow you, but it doesn’t expand your reach in any meaningful way.
And more broadly, Mosseri had a message for anyone chasing platform tricks: Most engagement hacks don’t work. And when they do, they don’t last.
“Those hack-type tactics sometimes work, usually don’t, and when we find them, we usually shut them down,” he said.
Instead, the focus should be on understanding what actually resonates, then doubling down on it. Oh and maybe, just maybe, focus on creating content your audience wants to see.
A small hint at what’s next
While killing one engagement hack, Mosseri may have quietly teased a new feature.
Instagram is now considering allowing users to schedule Stories, something it has historically avoided in favor of keeping Stories “in the moment” and more raw.
But as demand grows, that stance may be shifting. If it rolls out, it won’t boost your reach either, but it will make managing your presence a lot easier.