It’s been a long time coming, and a much-requested update, and today, finally, Instagram has announced that IG posts shared in tweets will appear with preview cards once again, helping to improve cross-platform sharing.
They said it would never happen… Twitter Card previews start rolling out TODAY. 👀
Now, when you share an Instagram link on Twitter a preview of that post will appear. 🙌 pic.twitter.com/XSZRx9dzd1
— Instagram (@instagram) November 3, 2021
Instagram preview links were previously available on Twitter, but Instagram canceled them in 2012, making it annoyingly difficult to share between the two apps.
But then, earlier this year, Instagram and Twitter started working together again, with tweets appearing as shareable stickers in Instagram Stories.
That opened the door to more potential cross-app collaboration, and a subsequent tweet exchange between Twitter product chief Kayvon Beykpour and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri eventually lead to this new tweet card update.
If you want to share your latest Instagram post on the Twitter timeline too, you’re in luck: now when you share a link to an IG post in a Tweet, it’ll show up as a card with a preview of the photo.
Rolling out on Android, iOS, and web.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 3, 2021
I mean, it’s not a perfect integration between the two apps. You don’t get, say, a full-screen Instagram post image in your tweet, which would be the ultimate cross-app sharing process, but this is likely the closest you’re ever going to get – though the friendship could still extend a little further, maybe…
always better late than never! thank you @mosseri 🙏
and for our next tango… having shared tweets in Stories link back to Twitter? 😉 https://t.co/vXeyDozrmI— Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) November 3, 2021
Right now, while you can share tweets in Instagram Stories, they’re not tappable, due to the way that Instagram limits links in Stories – or has done thus far, till it rolled out the link sticker to all users last month. That expansion could pave the way for tappable tweet links, which would make cross platform sharing even better.
Then again, maybe that’s getting greedy – right now, we should probably be happy to have IG previews return to tweets, facilitating new post sharing opportunities between the two apps.