Using Instagram with Buffer
With Buffer, you can plan and schedule your Instagram posts, carousels, stories and reels, get posting strategy recommendations, and engage with your community, all in one place.
In this article:
- How Instagram works with Buffer
- Connecting and refreshing your Instagram account
- Finding your Instagram account type
- Converting your Instagram account to a Professional account (Creator or Business)
- Scheduling Instagram posts, reels, and stories
- Image, video, and feature specifications by post type
- Engaging with Instagram posts
- Instagram analytics
- Instagram error library
These features are available for Instagram
| Publishing | Analytics | Engagement |
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
How Instagram works with Buffer
Instagram works slightly differently from other social networks in that posts can either be:
| Automatic Posts | Notification Posts |
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Posts can be published to Instagram automatically if:
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Posts will need to be scheduled as a notification if:
Notification posts don’t publish automatically. Instead, we send a notification to your phone that guides you in taking the final publishing steps manually.
Learn more in the article: Using notification based publishing
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⚠️ If you have an Instagram account connected and wish to use notification based publishing, you must set up notifications on your mobile device to ensure you don't miss any posts. (Download our mobile app on iOS or Android).
Connecting and refreshing your Instagram account
Head to your Channels area to connect your Instagram account to Buffer: https://account.buffer.com/channels
You can connect multiple Instagram accounts to Buffer. To make sure Buffer knows which one want to connect, log in to that Instagram account in another browser tab before trying to connect it to Buffer.
To see a step-by-step guide and troubleshooting steps, checkout the following articles:
If your connected Instagram channel requires a refresh, head to the article Refreshing a channel in Buffer.
- Not sure what type of Instagram account you have? Check out the steps below to find your account type.
- Instagram has a limit of five active accounts per device, so if you are managing more than five Instagram accounts in Buffer, we recommend checking out our guide to Working with multiple Instagram accounts.
Finding your Instagram account type
- Open the Instagram app on your mobile device and go to your profile.
- Tap on the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) in the upper right corner of the app.
- Here's what you will see at the bottom of the list of options, depending on your current account type:
- If you currently have an Instagram Business account, you'll see Business tools and controls.
- If you currently have an Instagram Personal profile, you'll see Account type and tools.
- If you currently have an Instagram Creator account, you'll see Creator tools and controls.
If your account is a Personal account and you’d like to post automatically using Buffer, you’ll need to follow the steps below to convert your account to a professional account.
Converting your Instagram account to a Professional account (Creator or Business)
- Your Instagram account must be a Professional account in order to post automatically.
- You may want to convert to Instagram Business because Instagram Creator accounts cannot schedule Instagram stories for automatic publishing.
- Open the Instagram app on your mobile device and tap the menu button in the upper right corner.
- Scroll down to For professionals and tap Account type and tools.
- Tap Switch to professional account. Note: If you don't see "Switch to professional account," but do see "Business tools and controls," you're already set up and can try connecting or refreshing your Instagram channel in Buffer again. If you're still experiencing trouble, let's check the connection between Facebook and Instagram.
- Tap continue until you reach the category page. Select a category.
- Select creator or business. Your Instagram account will now be a professional account.
Scheduling Instagram posts, reels, and stories
Check out a quick overview of scheduling features available for Instagram below or check out our full guide to Scheduling Instagram posts, reels, and stories.
Check out our Answers feature to find the best time to post on Instagram. For general guidance, you can also check out our blog post, The Best Time to Post on Instagram.
| Features & good-to-knows | Notes |
| Scheduling posts, reels, and stories (web) | Checkout our step-by-step guides to Scheduling Instagram posts, reels and stories. Plus, check out some good to knows below. |
| Scheduling in the mobile app | Check out our guide to Scheduling Instagram posts, reels, stories, and notifications on the Buffer mobile app. |
| Tagging / mentions | To tag / mention another Instagram account in your post or reel caption, type in the exact handle (we are unfortunately unable to search @usernames as you type). Once published to Instagram, the account you mentioned will become hyperlinked. Learn more about adding @ mentions (tags) here.
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| Instagram Shop Grid | Add a link to each of your posts, and then view all of your posts in a clickable grid via the link in your Instagram bio. Learn more about Instagram Shop Grid here. Instagram Shop Grid is not available for Instagram Personal accounts. |
| Daily posting limit | 50 posts per 24 hours (this includes all posts, stories, and reels shared within a 24 hour period). Learn more about Daily posting limits here. |
| Character limit | 2,200 characters per post. 2,196 characters per first comment. |
| Image descriptions / alt text | Due to API limitations, we are not able to add alt text to Instagram posts, reels, stories, or notifications. |
| Reposts | Unfortunately, it is not possible to schedule Instagram reposts. However, you can share one of your own posts again using Buffer’s Duplicate feature. |
| Adding a location | Learn more here: How locations work when scheduling Instagram posts through Buffer. |
| Carousel posts | Enjoy publishing carousel posts through Buffer. Instagram carousel posts do not support mixed media, meaning you will not be able to create a post containing both an image and video. |
| Hashtags | In the composer, type the hashtags you'd like to use. When the post is published, the hashtags will hyperlink just as if they were sent from the native platform itself. Learn more about How hashtags work in Buffer. |
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Collaborator posts
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Collaboration posts are not supported due to limitations with Instagram’s API. However, if you schedule the post using the
Notify Me option, you'll finish publishing your post in Instagram and can use their collaboration feature at that time.
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Music, Story Stickers, Polls & Links, Reels Topics, Product Tagging
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By selecting these options in the composer, your post will get scheduled for notification based publishing, as these options are not available with automatic publishing. Learn more about notification based publishing here. |
Scheduling Good to Knows
- Due to API limitations, we're not able to add trending music to posts or reels at this time.
- Due to API limitations, it is not possible to publish stories automatically on creator accounts.
- If you are sharing the URL of an Instagram post to another social network, we are unable to generate a link preview. Learn more about Sharing Facebook and Instagram links through Buffer.
- If you have Instagram settings to auto share on Facebook, your Instagram posts sent via Buffer won't auto publish on Facebook.
📝 If your Instagram posts are not being published automatically when they should be, check out our troubleshooting guide here: Why aren't my Instagram posts sending automatically?
Image, video, and feature specifications by post type
| Post | Reel | Story | |
| Images | ✓ (up to 10, between 4:5 and 1.91:1 aspect ratio) |
X | ✓ (suggested aspect ratio is 9:16) |
| Image size | 8MB | X | 8MB |
| Videos | ✓ (1) (video must be between 4:5 and 9:16 aspect ratio) |
✓ (1) (video must be between 4:5 and 9:16 aspect ratio) |
✓ (recommended size is 9:16; frame rate must be between 23 fps and 60 fps) |
| Video length | between 3 and 60 seconds | 5 seconds and 15 minutes for reels | between 3 and 60 seconds |
| Video size | 100MB or smaller | 100MB or smaller | 100MB or smaller |
| Video bitrate | 25Mbps maximum | 25Mbps maximum | 25Mbps maximum |
| Audio bitrate | 128kbps | 128kbps | 128kbps |
| Adding a location | ✓ | ✓ | X |
| First comment | ✓ | ✓ | X |
| Hashtag manager | ✓ | ✓ | X |
| Shop Grid | ✓ (not available for Instagram Personal accounts) | X | X |
Engaging with Instagram posts
Once your posts are published, you can use our engagement features to see your comments and reply, all in one view. Learn more about Engaging with Facebook and Instagram comments here.
- To use our engagement features for Instagram, your Instagram account must be set up as a professional account and must be connected to a Facebook page.
Instagram analytics
We can post all day, but the real excitement comes when seeing the reactions to our posts. If you’re on the Essentials, Team, or Agency plans, you’ll find all of your stats within the Analyze tab.
There are two places to look for analytics in your Buffer account:
To get a quick view of each of your Instagram posts' likes and comments, head to the Publish tab and then the Sent tab.
To dive straight into advanced analytics for your Instagram account, select Instagram on the left-hand side and peruse the tabs:
- Overview: gives insight into your overall engagement levels for your profile over time. Learn more about the Performance overview on your analytics dashboard.
- Posts: provides a history of all of your published posts and how they are performing. Learn more about Analyzing your posts within your analytics dashboard.
Answers: shares answers to questions such as the best day, type, and frequency to post. Learn more about Answering questions about your social media strategy.
Feel free to also learn more about our Instagram metric descriptions.
- To view advanced analytics for Instagram, your Instagram account must be set up as a professional account and must be connected to a Facebook page.
- When you first connect an Instagram channel, we will be able to backfill up to 30 days of data (excluding Stories data). Learn more about Why your data in Buffer might differ from your native analytics here.
- Due to API limitations, we are only able to pull Instagram data into the analytics dashboard for accounts that have 100 or more followers. Whilst it's technically possible to connect accounts that have fewer than 100 followers, no data will be available.
Instagram error library
If you're (unfortunately) hitting Instagram errors in Buffer, the Instagram error library is the place to go for solutions.
Do you have an Instagram feature suggestion? We’d love for you to submit or upvote it here on our feature suggestions board.