How to add music to an Instagram Story

Adding music to your Instagram Story can give it more impact and add to its chances of success. Whether you want to add summery vibes to your holiday pics with a chilled out pop melody,, or create an atmospheric mood for arty images, adding audio can make all the difference. Instagram has made it super-simple to do this, so here’s a look at how to make your next Instagram Story literally sing.

Adding music to your Instagram Story

Create your Story in the usual way. Then, before you post it to Instagram, look to the top of your screen to see a musical note icon button.

Tapping the musical note starts your journey.
Credit: SCREENSHOT / Instagram

Tap this and Instagram will show you your musical options.

Will you browse, or let Instagram choose “For you”?
Credit: SCREENSHOT / INSTAGRAM

These include two automatically generated lists. One is a selection of tracks that Instagram has suggested “For you,” and the other is a list you can browse. You can also use the search box at the top of the page to search for a specific track.

If you want to hear what a song sounds like, you simply need to tap the play arrow to the right of the track information.

Listen first.
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Once you’ve selected your song you can use the slider at the bottom of your screen to choose which section of the song your post uses. For image posts, this is a 15-second snippet. For video posts it’s the full runtime of the video.

Snip snip.
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Where available, the lyrics for the song you have chosen automatically show over your image, but you have some further options to consider as to how this looks and how your post appears.

You can change the style of the font by tapping the button with the different sized “AA” at the bottom of your screen.

It’s Instagram. Looks matter.
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And you can change the color of the text by tapping the color wheel at the top of your screen.

Pick your font color.
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If you don’t want the lyrics to appear over your post you can instead choose to have a small music credit badge appear.

Also a good option if there are no lyrics.
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Or you can choose to display the album art instead.

Treat that album art like, you know, art.
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You can find these options by swiping along to the end of the font options at the bottom of your screen.

Swiping along the end of the font options gets you here.
Credit: SCREENSHOT / INSTAGRAM

When you’re happy with your choices simply hit the “Done” button at the top right of your screen to send your musical Instagram Story live.