Connecting your Instagram account to Buffer
Buffer can connect to both Personal accounts (currently in Beta) as well as Professional accounts. The publishing, analytics, and engagement features vary depending on which type of Instagram account you have connected to Buffer:
| Personal Accounts | Professional (Business or Creator Accounts) | |
| Publishing Style |
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| Analytics | N/A |
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| Engagement | N/A |
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- Not sure what kind of account you have? Check out our guide here.
- 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
In this article:
- Connecting your Instagram Personal account
- Connecting your Instagram Business or Creator account
- Converting and linking Instagram to your Facebook page
Connecting your Instagram Personal account
- The option to connect Instagram Personal accounts is currently in Beta. Learn more about how to test Buffer's Beta features here.
- ⚠️ Due to API limitations, we are not able to:
- post automatically to Instagram Personal accounts
- access analytics or comments within Engage for Instagram Personal accounts.
- If you prefer to post automatically or wish to use Analyze and Engage with Instagram, you’ll need to switch your account type to an Instagram Business or Creator account and authorize with Facebook.
- 📝 Scheduling to Instagram Personal accounts is only available on our new plans. On a Legacy plan? Get in touch with us at hello@buffer.com to discuss your options!
- In Buffer, head to the Channels page by clicking this link or click on your profile avatar at the top right of your dashboard and then click Account from the drop down menu and choose Channels on the left menu.
- Click Instagram (If you already have channels connected, click Connect New Channel and then find Instagram and click Connect).
- Select Connect a Personal account.
- Next, enter your Instagram Personal account username and upload an image to use as your avatar.
Set up mobile notifications if you haven’t already.
- Then you’ll be good to go!
Connecting your Instagram Professional account (Business or Creator accounts)
- In Buffer, head to the Channels page by clicking this link or click on your profile avatar at the top right of your dashboard and then click Account from the drop down menu and choose Channels on the left menu.
- Click Instagram (If you already have channels connected, click Connect New Channel and then find Instagram and click Connect).
- Under “Professional,” select Connect to Instagram.
- Next, you’ll be prompted to log into Instagram.
- Follow the prompts to finish connecting your Instagram professional account to Buffer.
If you’d like to access advanced analytics and our engagement features, you’ll need to connect your Facebook page to Instagram first using the steps below. We recommend connecting a Instagram business account to Buffer, as Instagram Creator accounts cannot publish Stories automatically once you convert.
Converting and linking your Instagram account to a Facebook Page
- On your desktop browser, log into Facebook.com.
- Click your avatar in the top right-hand corner then click “See all profiles”. Here’s what that looks like.
- Click on the Page you want to work with. If you don’t see your Page, please see this guide to check if you have a Page.
- While on your Page, click here to view your linked accounts and click the Connect Account button.
- If your Instagram account is a Personal account, you’ll need to continue the prompts to convert it to a Business account in order to complete linking Instagram to your Page. Otherwise, you are all set!
If you choose to convert an Instagram Personal account to a Professional account, we will retain your scheduled and sent posts within Buffer. However, you will not see any data associated with your sent posts that were published while you were on a Personal account.
❓ Can our Customer Advocacy team answer any questions for you? Feel free to reach out via hello@buffer.com.