Connecting your Instagram business or creator account to Buffer
đź“ť If you see that your social channel is marked as "Unavailable" (like this), checkout our article: Why channels are appearing as "Unavailable" when attempting to connect them to Buffer
Buffer supports Instagram professional accounts, which include "business" and "creator" accounts. Click here to see what type of account you have. While connecting should only take a few minutes, it's not uncommon to run into sneaky issues, so we recommend following these steps carefully.
In this article:
- Instagram connection must-reads
- Connecting your Instagram business or creator account
- Setting up notifications
Instagram connection must-reads
- Your Instagram account must be a business or creator account. Here's how to convert your Instagram account to a business or creator account.
- Your Instagram account must be connected to a Facebook Page for Buffer to find your account and connect to it. Learn how to connect your Instagram account to a Facebook Page here.
- Your Facebook profile must be an Admin for that Facebook Page. Facebook's guide on managing roles can be found here and you can learn how to adjust your page role to Admin here.
- To automatically publish Instagram stories, your account needs to be set as an Instagram business account. If your account is an Instagram creator account, you can schedule your story using notification publishing instead.
- 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.
Connecting your Instagram business or creator account
- If you haven’t already, you’ll need to convert your Instagram personal profile to a professional account and select the type (business or creator), following the steps to convert your Instagram account to a business or creator account.
- In Buffer, click on your profile avatar at the top right of your dashboard and then click Account from the drop down menu.
- Click the Channels option from the menu on the left hand side of your screen.
- Click Instagram (If you already have channels connected, click Connect New Channel and then find Instagram and click Connect).
- Click Authenticate with Facebook. It is required that Instagram business accounts be linked to a Facebook Page in order to connect them to Buffer. This is why the authentication process needs to be completed within Facebook.
- Enter your Facebook login credentials and click Login. If you're already signed into Facebook, you will just need to enter your password and click Continue.
đź“ť It is required to login to the personal Facebook profile that has the admin role on the Facebook Page connected to your Instagram account. If you log into a Facebook profile that doesn't have the admin role on the Page, or if your profile isn't correctly setup as an admin within Facebook Business Suite, you will not see your Instagram professional account listed in the next step. Learn how to find your Page role here.
- You'll need to authorize Buffer to access your Facebook account. Click Continue as [name] and then click OK on the next prompt. (If you already have another Facebook or Instagram account connected to Buffer that was authorized through the same Facebook personal profile, you won't see these steps. Instead, you'll see a message asking to continue with previous settings. Do not make changes here and just click Continue as [your profile name]).
đź“ť You'll notice an option to "Choose what you allow". This option is required to be shown in this step due to Facebook's guidelines, but it is important that you do not change any of the permissions. Modifying any of the permissions here will mean that we are not able to authenticate with Facebook and it will not be possible to connect your Instagram account.
- Click on the Instagram channel you'd like to connect and click Add to Buffer.
⚠️ Not seeing your Instagram account listed? Please see the Troubleshooting Facebook and Instagram connections guide here.
- You're almost done! Once your page has been connected to Buffer, you'll need to download the Buffer mobile app and enable notifications. This is necessary so that we can schedule your post as a notification in case it can't be published automatically. Jump down to Setting up notifications.
âť“ Can our Customer Advocacy team answer any questions for you? Feel free to reach out via hello@buffer.com.
Setting up notifications
Instagram works a bit differently than other social networks and not all posts can be published automatically. Posts containing an image or video that falls outside of Instagram's accepted aspect ratio range will be scheduled as notifications. Whenever you're scheduling a post, we'll let you know if it's going to be scheduled as a notification. You can learn more about using notification publishing for Instagram here.
The first time you schedule a post that will be sent as a notification, you’ll be prompted to set up notifications if you don’t already have the mobile app installed. You don’t need to complete these steps unless you’re prompted to do so in the app.
- Click Set Up Notifications (either in the prompt at the top of the queue or on a post that is scheduled as a notification).
- Download the Buffer mobile app, either on iOS or Android and then sign into your account. Push notifications should be enabled automatically when you sign into your account on the mobile app.
- Click Test notifications.
- Check your phone for the notification and click I received the notification then Got it to complete the process.
- Congratulations, you're ready to schedule your first Instagram post!