The Instagram Stories feature has become incredibly popular on Instagram. In fact, there are a number of users that have stopped uploading posts to their feed, but instead focus only on Instagram stories. I am in the middle of those two groups – I usually share 2-3 images/videos almost every day on Stories, and 1 image every other day on my feed at @sharayray.

Behind-the-Scenes in Instagram Stories

Stories usually features behind-the-scenes of my day-to-day life, or articles I want to link to (one of the benefits of having over 10K followers), or mediocre images that I want to share but don’t think would look good in my feed. Images in my feed are a curated mix of food pictures, wine, family, travel, and social media tips (I go into more detail in my free Instagram Marketing playbook, in case you wanted more info). ;)

The Stories feature just got one of the best updates I have seen so far: they allow you to upload a bunch of pictures and videos all at once. Previously, you had to upload content one story at a time, which would be fine for people who wanted to post over the course of their day, but not so great for people who wanted to post a longer “story” that had multiple images and videos – you know…something that actually tells a STORY through multiple pieces of content. In fact, according to my favorite social media scheduler BUFFER, they found that one to seven Instagram stories is the optimal posting length. Any more, and you simply lose people.

More People Using Instagram Stories

This new update will make the feature even more accessible to users and is probably going to bump up usage rates. Making stories easier to share makes me want to use it more. I wouldn’t be surprised if a year from now the usage of Instagram Stories is the same as the regular feed (currently 400M look at stories and 1B look at the feed each month).

How to Share Multiple Instagram Stories

1. Click on the camera icon at the top left side of your Instagram feed (from your phone).

2. Click on the bottom left camera roll image.

3. Click on the multiple images icon on the top right.

4. Scroll through and add your images/videos in order of how you want them to be shown in Instagram Stories (right now you cannot change the placement or delete images like you can when sharing a carousel of images to your feed, but I am sure that will update soon).

5. Click NEXT.

6. Edit your photos/videos by adding text, GIFS, links, filters, and/or now zoom in and adjust the image if you want.

7. Click NEXT again.

8. Share to your story (or if you want to share with a group of close friends or just one person, you can).

Why I Love This New Instagram Stories Update

I love this new feature because, like I mentioned before, it makes sharing to Instagram Stories a little more seamless. I add text and custom bars behind my text to most of my stories, so it sometimes takes me awhile after sharing an image to share the second one. Being able to edit all of my content and hit share ONCE makes it a lot easier.

What about you – does this new Instagram Stories feature make you want to upload more content to Instagram?