Creating picture stories with music on Facebook can be a fun and engaging way to share memories, tell stories, or just get creative. With Facebook’s photo album and video features, you can easily add music, captions, and effects to photos to make visually appealing “picture stories” to post on your news feed. This allows you to share moments and experiences in an artistic, multimedia format.
While Facebook doesn’t have a dedicated “picture story” feature, you can approximate the experience through creative use of posts, photo albums, Facebook Stories, and Facebook videos. With the right music, captions, tags, and edits, you can produce memorable picture stories your friends and family will love scrolling through.
Preparing Your Photos
The first step is selecting the photos you want to use for your picture story. You’ll want a cohesive set of high-quality photos in the proper orientation (landscape or portrait). Ideally, the photos will relate to each other in some way, like telling the story of a vacation, chronicling your child’s school year, or documenting a special event.
Once you’ve gathered your photos, you may want to edit them within a photo editing app to adjust color, brightness, cropping, etc. This will make the pictures ready for turning into a visually compelling story. Apps like Snapseed, VSCO, and Adobe Lightroom offer robust photo editing tools right on your smartphone.
Adding Music
Music can add a lot of emotional impact to a picture story. Select instrumental, cinematic scores that complement the tone of your photos. Apps like Artlist, Epidemic Sound, and Soundstripe offer diverse catalogs of high-quality, copyright-free music perfect for Facebook picture stories.
You have a few options for adding music to your Facebook picture story:
Upload Video with Music
You can add music by uploading a video file with a music track added to it. To do this:
– Open a video editing app like iMovie, ClipChamp, or Kapwing.
– Import the photos you want to use.
– Add a music track from your device or an online library. Adjust length as needed.
– Export the video at 1080p resolution.
– Upload the finished video to Facebook instead of just the photos. The music will play automatically as viewers watch the video picture story.
Use Facebook Stories Music Stickers
Facebook Stories has a music sticker option that lets you add clips of popular songs to individual stories. To use:
– Go to Stories and upload a photo.
– Click the sticker icon and select “Music” from the menu.
– Browse clips of trending songs and select one to add to your photo story. You can resize and position the sticker.
– Share the story. When people view it, the song clip will play.
Add Music During Post Creation
When creating a new post on Facebook (not in Stories), you have the option to add background music from Facebook’s library:
– Upload your photo(s) to a new post.
– Click “Add music” below the text box.
– Browse clips of trending songs and select one you like.
– The clip will play automatically as people scroll through your picture story post.
Writing Captions
Well-written captions make picture stories far more engaging. Each photo should have a short caption to provide context, tell part of the story, convey emotion, or complement the music.
Keep captions brief but evocative. Let the visuals and music do much of the storytelling work, and use captions to creatively enhance the overall experience.
Play with different formatting like:
– Short declarations
– Questions
– Lyric snippets
– Poetic phrases
– Location/date markers
Captions can provide critical details, so ensure captions accurately describe each photo moment.
Adding Special Effects
Use Facebook’s creative tools to add special effects to your picture story. Effects like black and white, sepia tone, and blurred edges can add an artistic, cinematic feel.
In the Facebook app:
– Upload a photo to a post or story.
– Click the emoji/sticker menu.
– Select “Effects” and browse the different options.
– Choose an effect to apply to the photo. Customize intensity as desired.
Don’t go overboard with effects – subtle use enhances aesthetics without being distracting.
Putting the Picture Story Together
Once you’ve compiled your edited photos, music, captions, and effects, it’s time to assemble your picture story. You have two main options for bringing everything together:
Photo Album Post
Upload your sequence of photos, including music videos, into a new photo album post:
– Go to your timeline and click “Photo/Video” to create a new post.
– Select “Photo Album” and choose all the photos in order.
– Arrange the photos in the desired sequence.
– Apply captions to each photo.
– Click “Preview” to ensure it looks right.
– Post the photo album for friends to view your picture story.
Facebook Stories
Alternatively, upload your sequence as a series of connected Facebook stories:
– Go to “Stories” and select “Create Story.”
– Upload your first photo and customize with music, effects, etc. Post.
– Continue adding each photo as a new story in succession.
– The photos will display in a slideshow format in Facebook stories.
Tagging Friends
Don’t forget to tag friends who appear in your picture story. Tagging prompts friends to view your post and engages them in the experience. It also associates their name with their profile picture.
– Click a photo containing a friend to expand it.
– Click “Tag Friends” and type the name of the friend pictured.
– Select the correct match from the dropdown.
– Position the tag where you want it.
– Repeat for other friends in your picture story.
When you tag friends in a public post, they’ll be notified and can then like, comment on, and share the post, expanding its reach. Tagging essentially invites friends to engage with your creative picture story.
Sharing the Picture Story
Once your music-enhanced picture story is complete, post it to Facebook to share with friends and family. Publish the photo album post or Facebook story to your timeline.
– For a public post, share it directly on your news feed so all friends can see it.
– For a private post, limit sharing to specific friend lists or groups who would most appreciate the story.
Additionally, invite people to view your picture story post:
– On the post, click “Invite” and select friends to notify.
– Share a link to your post in a Facebook message or group.
– Promote the post in your Facebook Stories using link stickers.
Track engagement with your picture story by monitoring reactions, comments, and shares. Respond to comments from friends participating in the experience. Your visual storytelling will help strengthen social connections on Facebook.
Picture Story Ideas
Looking for picture story inspiration? Try these creative ideas:
– A child’s birthday party
– High school graduation
– Wedding ceremony and reception
– Vacation highlights
– Road trip journal
– Favorites from a concert
– Backstage moments from a show
– Home remodeling progress
– Pet adoption day
– Holiday celebrations
– Special anniversary
– Honeymoon adventures
– Motherhood journey
– Seasonal farm life
– Landscape photography tour
– Backpacking expedition
– Volunteer work overseas
– Military homecoming
– Culinary creations
– Gardening blooms
The possibilities are endless! Choose subject matter special to you and augment the photos with music, text, effects and tags to engage audiences on Facebook.
Conclusion
Creating picture stories is a wonderful way to develop your social media creativity while sharing meaningful life moments with friends and family on Facebook.
The key steps include:
– Curation – Select meaningful, high-quality photos that convey a narrative.
– Customization – Use music, captions, text, and creative effects to enhance aesthetics.
– Crafting – Carefully arrange photos and embellishments into a cohesive, compelling story.
– Sharing – Post the final picture story through Facebook albums, stories, or feed posts.
– Engagement – Invite friends and interact using tags, likes, and comments.
So grab your best pics, pick an emotive soundtrack, and start assembling your next picture story masterpiece to share on Facebook!