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:

Connecting and refreshing your Instagram account
How Instagram works with Buffer
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
✓	✓	✓

Connecting and refreshing your Instagram account

You can connect multiple Instagram business or creator accounts to Buffer. To see a step-by-step guide and troubleshooting steps, checkout the following articles:

If your connected Instagram requires a refresh, check out the article Refreshing a channel in Buffer.

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.

How Instagram works with Buffer

Instagram works slightly differently from other social networks in that posts can either be:

Automatic Posts

Notification Posts

Posts can be published to Instagram automatically if they're within Instagram's accepted aspect ratio range and the following type of post:

a single image
multiple (carousel) images
single video posts
reels

Posts will need to be scheduled as a notification if:

they contain an image or video that falls outside of Instagram's accepted aspect ratio range
you want to add features that aren't supported for automatic publishing such as:

music for stories or reels
links on stories
text on stories
product tags
collaboration posts
topics

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 for Instagram.

You'll also see an option in the composer where you can either choose Automatic (if your post can be scheduled automatically) or Notify Me (if you either choose to get a mobile notification for your post or if it contains content that can't be published automatically, such as videos that are over the duration limit).

GIF of toggling between automatic and notifications based publishing in the Buffer composer

⚠️ If you have an Instagram account connected and wish to use notification based publishing, you must set up notification s on your mobile device to ensure you don't miss any posts. (Download our mobile app on iOS or Android).

Scheduling Instagram posts, reels, and stories

Check out a quick overview of scheduling features available for Instagram below.

Looking for the best time to schedule your Instagram posts? Check out our guide: The Best Time to Post on Instagram.

Features & good-to-knows	Notes
Scheduling posts, reels, and stories	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	We have two posts that can help you get started posting to Instagram in the mobile app: -Scheduling Instagram posts and reels on the Buffer mobile app -Scheduling Instagram Stories 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. Tagging users in images is only available on automatically published posts. It’s not available for reels, stories, or posts scheduled as notifications.
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.
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.
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 Share Again 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.
Collaborator posts	Collaboration posts are not supported due to limitations with Instagram’s API. However, you can schedule the post using the Notify Me option to finish publishing your post in the Instagram app.
Music, Story Stickers & Links, Reels Topics, Product Tagging	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 16:9 aspect ratio)	✓ (1) (video must be between 4:5 and 16:9 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	✓	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.

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 analytics 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 Publishing 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.

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.