Facebook Stories allow you to share photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours. However, sometimes you want your story to remain visible for longer than just a day.
Fortunately, there are a few tricks you can use to make your Facebook story last longer. In this post, I’ll explain multiple methods to extend the life of your Facebook stories beyond 24 hours.
Why Make Your Story Last Longer?
Here are some reasons why you may want to make your Facebook story last longer than 24 hours:
Highlight Important Moments
Some events like vacations, parties, or big milestones deserve more than 24 hours of visibility. Keeping your story up longer lets more people see and engage with your important life moments.
Increase Engagement
More visibility time for your story gives more opportunities for reactions, comments and shares. This leads to higher engagement and reach.
Repurpose Content
You can reuse story content in future posts or ads once the 24 hours expires. A longer initial story lifespan lets you download and republish the content later.
Avoid Missing Out
Not all your friends and followers see stories right away. A 24-hour limit means many people miss out on your story. A longer lifespan prevents FOMO for your network.
Ways to Extend Your Facebook Story
Here are 5 methods to make your Facebook story last longer than 24 hours:
1. Repost to Your Profile
The easiest way to re-share your story is to simply download it before it expires and post it to your profile.
You can also upload it as a new story again if you want it to appear in the same format. This essentially resets the 24-hour timer and keeps it alive on your profile.
2. Add it to a Highlight
Facebook Stories Highlights allow you to group together stories on a common theme. These highlights don’t expire, so adding your story to one will keep it visible indefinitely. To use highlights:
- Tap the “Your Story” icon in Facebook Stories.
- Name and create a new highlight.
- Tap “Add Story” and select your story to add it.
- Viewers can now see your highlight via your profile anytime.
3. Share it With Friends
You can extend the life of your story by directly sharing it with friends. Tap the “Send To” icon, select friends, then send it as a message. They’ll be able to view the story for longer than 24 hours via the message you sent.
4. Save it to Your Camera Roll
Download your story to your camera roll before it expires by tapping the three dots at the bottom and selecting “Save Photo/Video”. You can then upload the saved story back to Facebook anytime you want. It will appear as a new story and get a fresh 24-hour lifespan.
5. Cross-post to Other Platforms
Share your story on other social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn to get more mileage out of it.
You can natively cross-post Facebook Stories to Instagram, while other platforms require manual re-sharing. This gives your story maximum exposure and removes the 24-hour limit.
Tips for Making Your Extended Story Effective
Here are some tips to make your longer-lasting Facebook Story more effective and engaging:
- Edit or enhance the story – Consider refreshing the visuals or adding text before re-sharing an expired story. This gives it a new feel.
- Change up the content – If directly reposting the same story over and over, modify the content itself periodically. This could be cropped images, new captions, or visual effects.
- Remind viewers to check your highlights – Let your audience know that your best stories are saved via highlights on your profile. Encourage them to view.
- Limit excessive self-promotion – Don’t make every story an obvious promo piece or link to your website. Focus mainly on providing value and entertainment for your audience.
- Monitor engagement and feedback – Keep an eye on how further shares and reposts of your story content are received. This can inform how you repurpose the content.
- Use relevant hashtags – Adding relevant hashtags makes it easy for people to find your stories if they’re interested in a specific topic. This can lead to more eyes on your extended story.
Common Questions
Here are answers to some common questions about making Facebook stories last longer:
Does Facebook notify followers when you repost an expired story?
No, Facebook doesn’t notify your audience if you simply repost an expired story as a new story. However, followers may realize it’s not new if they saw your original story. Reposting to your profile as a new post does notify followers.
Can you reuse the same story in a highlight multiple times?
Yes, you can add a single story to multiple highlights on your profile if it’s relevant to different themes. There is no limit on how many times a story can appear across highlights.
What’s the best way to save an expiring story offline?
Saving your story video or photo directly to your camera roll before it expires gives you the original highest quality file. This provides flexibility for future re-sharing options.
Can you repurpose story content created by someone else?
No, you should only re-share stories and content that you created yourself. Using someone else’s content without permission could result in copyright issues.
Conclusion
Making your Facebook stories last longer than the usual 24 hour limit is easy with the right tools and tactics. Using highlights, cross-posting, sharing with friends and simply reposting can extend your story lifespan indefinitely.
This helps you get more eyes on your story, highlight key moments and repurpose content.
With these tips, you can keep your best stories visible for as long as you want. Just remember to mix up old content with new stories, and monitor engagement and feedback. Keep providing value, entertainment and useful information to your audience above all else.
