How to Add Music to Instagram Story Using PowerPoint

Summary
The thought of how to add music to Instagram story has remained a dominant concern for many creative users. For good reasons. Why? Well, we know that an Instagram story can run for just 7 to 15 seconds and it remains viewable for only 24 hours. There is however a small twist in this. Instagram story videos appear for 15 seconds as against 7 seconds for a photo without music, so you can say that there clearly is a preference for videos in place of static images. And, to make a snazzy Instagram story with video, isn’t it rather ‘imperative’ to add music to it? You bet.

In this article, we will explain how to insert music into PowerPoint for Instagram story video. In fact, we will get to see the steps for embedding multiple music clips in PowerPoint for Instagram video – watch this video illustration. Let us begin.

What it means to add music to Instagram story?

Since its launch in June 2018, the boilerplate argument to add music to Instagram story is that it enhances its viewable value. That it does, no doubt. Much however depends on the type of music (or, for that matter, a call-to-action message) you add.

Suppose you are adding a music to an Instagram story picture. In that case, the music will play for 15 seconds along with the picture, instead of the usual 7 seconds.

But consider this. Won’t it be too boring to run a static image for 15 seconds since it is accompanied with music which may or may not play?

That is why adding music to a video on Instagram makes more sense than to a static picture.

If you do not have built-in music in your video, fret not! For, Instagram makes it easy to select tunes from its own library (available in select countries).

You can also add them from music streaming services like Spotify, Shazam, and SoundCloud, provided you have their apps up and running on your smartphone.

To know how to add music to Instagram story using the app, just run a search on Google for that. There are many resources that explain the steps to do this in detail.

But Instagram may not play music after all.

Herein lies the dilemma for most users, and it is true even with experienced hands. There are increasing reports of Instagram music not playing for many business accounts, and in some cases personal accounts as well.

So, what could be the reason for this? Let us hear from the horse’s mouth.

This is what Instagram has to say on this:

Instagram further informs that these rules apply across live and recorded video on both Facebook and Instagram, and for all types of accounts.

Bear also in mind that Instagram music is available in only about 90+ countries. Many are still left out, and that means if your video contains recorded music, it may not be available in those places.

If these sound dismal to you, take heart!

Digiday’s Sahil Patel says that as much as 85 percent of video views on Facebook happen with the sound off.

Sahil’s post is nearly 5 years old, but I suppose people may not have altered this practice so far.

Not surprisingly, most social media videos across different platforms do not play music during viewing unless it is turned on or replayed.

So, with that in view, let us turn to adding 2 or more music or sound clips to an Instagram story video using PowerPoint.

Why insert music into PowerPoint for Instagram story?

This is a pertinent question. After all you can create an Instagram story video on the fly with the help of a smartphone, so what is the big deal you may ask.

Two answers to it:

1. Unless you are an experienced video designer, you may not be able to create top-class story video with just a smartphone. Instead of this, using snazzy video templates like those in our stores is a much better idea. And it is economical too!!
2. Even if you are good at video making with smartphone, you will still need to add a music to it separately. To do this you may need a video editor, especially if you want the music to be an intrinsic part of the final video.

Many SaaS tools solve this problem by allowing you to embed a music to video templates before you make the final Instagram story video.

In the same way, you can easily insert music into PowerPoint across any number of slides to create video for posting as an Instagram story.

While you are here, browse our online store, you will find customizable PowerPoint video templates for a wide array of themes, the popular ones being Education, Business, Travel, and Marketing among others.

What is more, you will get the templates in all the popular sizes for social media, viz. 1:1 square, 9:16 vertical, 16:9 rectangle, and 4:5 vertical.

Remember, all our templates are professionally designed and customizable, and that means you can easily create your own snazzy videos for Instagram stories.

If you are just starting or still building your skills, considering checking out our 5 practical and expert tips to make Instagram videos with PowerPoint.

What you should know to insert music into PowerPoint.

When you plan to insert music clip into PowerPoint, you can use one or more music clips depending on the duration of the final video and that of the music clips.

For making Instagram story video there are mainly 2 different ways you can embed music clips in your PowerPoint template:

1. In the first method, you can embed music clip(s) in the original template and make it/them play across the slides. To do this requires planning and some amount of expertise.
2. In the second method, you can do it in 3 simple steps:
   1. Convert a PowerPoint template into a silent video.
   2. Embed that video in a new template, so it comes on a single slide.
   3. Insert music in that single slide, do necessary adjustments and produce the final video.

The second method is relatively easier, so you may want to follow the 3-step second technique to make your Instagram story video.

Okay, let us see how to embed and play a music clip in PowerPoint with the 2 above techniques.

Method 1 – Embed & play music clip across many PowerPoint slides.

Let me select the customizable video template on 4 Work from Home Tips. It is a 1:1 square video, 15 seconds duration, which is exactly right for your Instagram story video.

As you can see below, there are 5 slides in the PowerPoint video template. And our job will be to insert a music clip in such a way that it plays across all the slides and therefore for the entire video.

There are a couple of things to take note of, which are about knowing the duration of the first and last slides. This is important because this will let us decide how to let the music clip play across the slides.

Step One – Know duration of first & last slides.

In the above GIF, the first slide has a duration of 2.75 seconds, while the last slide has a duration of 6.5 seconds.

The total duration of this unedited video template is 22 seconds, which has been shortened to 15 seconds for showcasing in the store.

So, I can plan for a music clip that is approximately 22 seconds long, which is about the same as the duration of the video.

Step Two – Insert the music clip & trim it.

Okay, let us now insert a music clip into PowerPoint for our Instagram story video. There are many resources that offer free music, and I have used many of them. In recent times I have been using free music at Envato’s Mixkit.

For our present needs, let me select the music Deep Meditation by Alejandro Magaña. It has a duration of 2 minutes 27 seconds. But we want just about 21 to 22 seconds, so we will trim the music clip as per our needs.

So, after you have downloaded the MP3 music to your computer, just copy it in the Download folder and coming to your PowerPoint template, paste it on the first slide.

You can also insert the music into PowerPoint on the first slide by going to top menubar, then clicking on Insert > Audio > Audio on My PC. As the Insert Audio dialog box opens, go ahead select the music clip in your Download folder, and click Insert.

Once it is there on the first slide, it is time to trim the music clip inside PowerPoint to make it 21 to 22 seconds long. This is explained in the GIF below.

Step Three – Adjust music clip properly.

The heavy lifting is over. The inserted music is now just 22 seconds long, which is exactly what we wanted for our Instagram story video.

All that is needed now is to make the music clip play across all the slides, and make it fade in for say 2 seconds or so.

Why fade in?

Well, the fade in is needed because remember the audio clip has been cut somewhere in the middle where it is already playing in full swing. So, to tone down the volume as it starts, to make it more soothing, it is a good idea to fade in the music.

In addition to that, the other vital job will be to make the music play across all the 5 slides. All of that is explained in the GIF below.

Step Four – Add more music clips.

Okay, we have embedded a music clip into PowerPoint, we have trimmed it to 22 seconds, then we did the fading in and out, and finally we have made the music play for all the 5 slides.

What about adding a second music clip? This can be done easily following the steps above. In fact, you can insert any number of music to PowerPoint as you wish, provided of course it makes sense.

In this step what we will do is add a sound clip to the same PowerPoint template. More precisely, it will be my voice clip in MP3, and we will add this too in the first slide with 1 second delay.

This means the voice clip will start playing after 1 second. We will adjust the volume of the music clip to Low and increase Fade In to 9 seconds.

Watch the following video for this.

Method 2 – Embed & play music clip on 1 PowerPoint slide.

There are 3 simple steps to follow in this method.

• In the first step you need to convert the PowerPoint template into a silent MP4 video.
• The second step will see you open a new PowerPoint file and paste the video on the first slide. In fact, you will have just this one slide with video for your work. Ensure that the video starts automatically without any delay.
• You will embed the music clip and the voice clip in the third step. Ensure that both start automatically. The music clip should start without delay while the voice clip may start after 1 or 2 seconds.

Lastly, you need to adjust the volume levels of both the clips as explained in the previous section. And do not forget to make the music clip fading in and out.

If you now produce the video, you will find that your final Instagram story video with PowerPoint has come exactly as in the last section.

The following video summarizes the main steps:

Summing up

As mentioned above, inserting 2 to 3 music clips into PowerPoint (even more) is not difficult if you can manage their playing well.

Watch this YouTube tutorial – I made this 7 years back – in which an entire sales video is created by embedding music clips and voice clips in PowerPoint slides.

For those of you wanting to insert music to Instagram story video but not sure how to do that, this article will be of immense help to make that happen.

And while you are here do not forget to check out our newest PowerPoint video templates on sale.

Use the comment box below for any query on this post.

All the best.

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Top image courtesy, Malte Helmhold, Unsplash