Facebook tests new feature for posting feeds to Instagram

Facebook said the feature, which has yet to be formally announced, first began to roll out earlier this month

Facebook already allows users to cross-post their Instagram Stories and Reels to Facebook. Now it’s testing a new feature that would see posts flowing in the other direction, too. The company recently rolled out an option that allows users to cross-post their Facebook updates that include photos or videos over to their Instagram.

For people who are active on both platforms, the feature could save them from having to upload the same media twice in two different apps. It also gives Facebook an easy way to seed Instagram with more content at a time when the company is invested in ensuring Instagram remains a popular social media platform with younger users in the face of increased competition from apps like Snapchat and TikTok.

Facebook said the feature, which has yet to be formally announced, first began to roll out earlier this month. However, the company noted the option is currently a global test that’s only available to a small group of people who already have their Facebook profiles linked to a personal, creator or business account on Instagram.

Facebook has been working to make its suite of apps more interoperate in recent months.

The company last year introduced cross-app communication between Messenger and Instagram, allowing Instagram users to chat with friends who use Facebook and vice versa. It’s also been working on making Messenger more of a “connective tissue” for Facebook’s growing number of real-time experiences and has been testing a way that Facebook users could make voice and video calls right on Facebook without having to switch to the Messenger app.

And last month, it revamped its ad products to include more tools that would allow people to message businesses on any of Facebook’s chat platforms, instead of just the one where they’re seeing the ad.