How To Auto-Publish Posts To Instagram Business Profiles

Publishing content to your Instagram Business Profiles with SmarterQueue has never been easier. 💪

You can publish  single-image posts, image carousels (up to 10 images), reels, or video posts (up to 60 seconds) to your feed directly to Instagram if your Instagram Business Profile is connected to a Facebook Page. Check out how to switch your personal Instagram profile to a Business one (and connect it to a Facebook Page) to get started with direct publishing today. 

Note: Posting all these posts to Instagram Personal and Media Creator Profiles , as well as all Story and long-form video posts to your feed will require that you install the SmarterQueue Mobile App, to receive notifications and publish according to your pre-determined Posting Plan.

In This Article

How To Enable Direct Publishing For Instagram Business Profiles

Once you've made sure that your Instagram Business Profile is connected to a Facebook Page and you've added it to your SmarterQueue account, make sure that you  enable direct publishing, to be able to auto-post your single image and video posts. 

1. Go to the Profiles section.

2. Scroll down to Instagram Publishing, find the Instagram Business Profile you've added, and press the " Enable Direct Publishing" button. 

3. You will see a quick pop-up explaining the process - you will need to grant SmarterQueue permissions for both your Instagram Business accounts, as well as the Facebook Pages to which they're connected. Please "Select all" for both to avoid any issues (like failed messages due to lack of permissions).

4. You will be asked to continue with your Facebook Profile (Admin of the Facebook Page linked to your Instagram Profile): 

Note: This pop-up is to confirm that you're logged in as the right user! Rest assured, this does not give SmarterQueue permission to manage your Personal Facebook Profile in any way. 

5. In the next dialogue boxes, you’ll be asked to allow the necessary permissions for SmarterQueue to connect with your Instagram Business Accounts and Facebook Pages.

We strongly recommend you "Select all" permissions in the 2 dialogue boxes shown below, rather than granting granular permissions. This will ensure you avoid running into publishing errors that can come up due to one of the many permissions bugs in Facebook's API. It will also make it easier to add any of your other Pages, and Instagram Profiles to your SmarterQueue account in the future.

6. After granting permissions to all of your Social Profiles, you will be asked what actions you'll want to take through SmarterQueue. Once again, ensure you checkmark everything, otherwise, you will not be able to create and publish posts via SmarterQueue to your Social Profiles.

Click "Done" to continue.

7. Click OK and that's it. You're ready to go! ✨ 

How To Create And Auto-Publish Your Single-Image Instagram Post

1. Click "Create a Post" to open the Post Editor.

2. Next, choose a Category. 

Note: Be sure to select a Category you've enabled for your Instagram Profile!

3. Then select the Instagram Profile for which you'd like to create the post.

4. Write your caption and add your media.

Note: The caption has a 2200-character limit, with up to 30 hashtags and 20 mentions. These limits also extend to the first comment, so if, for example, you're adding a first comment that contains hashtags to your post, the total number of hashtags between both post and first comment can't be over 30.

Note: Keep in mind that images should be between 4:5 (tall) and 1.91:1 (wide) to ensure that you will be able to auto-publish without any changes. If not this size, SmarterQueue will add padding to the image to make sure that the post can still be auto-published.  

5. Then select your Post Timing and Evergreen Post Recycling options and save/publish the post. 💪

1. Click "Create a Post" to open the Post Editor.

2. Next, choose a Category. 

Note: Be sure to select a Category you've enabled for your Instagram Profile!

3. Then select the Instagram Profile for which you'd like to create the post.

4. Write your caption in the text box.

Note: The caption has a 2200-character limit, with up to 30 hashtags and 20 mentions. 

5. Then add up to 10 images by dragging and dropping them onto the screen or by clicking the camera icon under "Media" to select the files to upload. 

Note: If any of the images you add are too wide or too tall for direct publishing, we will add padding to them to ensure you meet Instagram's guidelines. Find out what size images you should use.

Note: If your images have different aspect ratios, all images in your Carousel Post will be cropped to the size of the first image added to the post. 

6. Select your Post Timing and Evergreen Post Recycling options, then click Save to add your Post to your Queue. 💪

How To Create And Auto-Publish Your Reels To Instagram

1. Click "Create a Post" to open the Post Editor.

2. Next, choose a Category. 

Note: Be sure to select a Category you've enabled for your Instagram Profile!

3. Then select the Instagram Profile for which you'd like to create the post.

4. You will now see an option to select the "Instagram Post Type". Select "Reel".

This will update the Preview pane on the right-hand side to show your future Post in the Story format. 

5. Write your caption in the text box.

Note: The caption has a 2200-character limit, with up to 30 hashtags and 20 mentions. 

6. Then add your video by dragging it onto the screen or clicking the camera icon under 'Media' to select a file to upload. You'll see an hourglass icon instead of your video until you save the post and let the video load. 

Note: Keep in mind that video files should be between 1:10 (tall) and (10:1) wide to ensure that you will be able to auto-publish. If not this size, you will see a message letting you know and your post will be published via the notification workflow for the SmarterQueue Mobile App. 

Note: The exact duration of the video needs to be between 3 seconds and 15 minutes, give or take 1 second, depending on rounding and frame rates. If your video is around 15 minutes long, there's a chance that it might end up being rounded up to 15 minutes and 1 second in the Post Editor, or Instagram may consider it to be just over 15 minutes and reject it from direct publishing. For videos where you're not 100% sure, check back in again after the video was processed to see if the Post Editor mentions the post will be sent to the SmarterQueue Mobile App, to be published via the Notification Workflow. 

7. Select your Post Timing and Evergreen Post Recycling options, then click Save to add your Post to your Queue. 💪

Note: The video will start processing after you save the post. If you want to send the post now, you will still need to first save it to the Queue or as a Draft, allow the video time to process, and then edit the post to publish right away. 

How To Create And Auto-Publish Your Video Post To Your Instagram Feed

With SmarterQueue, you can also auto-publish videos up to 60 seconds directly to your Instagram Feed. 

Pro Tip: If you'd like to schedule video posts  that are longer than 60 seconds to your feed and still auto-publish, try scheduling them as reels instead. Reels get cross-posted to your feed and they have a 15-minute time limit for direct publishing. 

1. Click "Create a Post" to open the Post Editor.

2. Next, choose a Category. 

Note: Be sure to select a Category you've enabled for your Instagram Profile!

3. Then select the Instagram Profile for which you'd like to create the post.

4. Write your caption in the text box.

Note: The caption has a 2200-character limit, with up to 30 hashtags and 20 mentions. 

5. Then add your video by dragging it onto the screen or clicking the camera icon under 'Media' to select a file to upload. You'll see an hourglass icon instead of your video until you save the post and let the video load. 

Note: Keep in mind that video files should be between 4:5 (tall) and 16:9 (wide) to ensure that you will be able to auto-publish. If not this size, you will see a message letting you know and your post will be published via the notification workflow for the SmarterQueue Mobile App.  

Note: The exact duration of the video needs to be between 3 seconds and 60 seconds, give or take 1 second, depending on rounding and frame rates. If your video is around 60 seconds long, there's a chance that it might end up being rounded up to 61 seconds in the Post Editor, or Instagram may consider it to be just over 60 seconds and reject it from direct publishing. For videos where you're not 100% sure, check back in again after the video was processed to see if the Post Editor mentions the post will be sent to the SmarterQueue Mobile App, to be published via the Notification Workflow.

6. Select your Post Timing and Evergreen Post Recycling options, then click Save to add your Post to your Queue. 💪

Note: The video will start processing after you save the post. If you want to send the post now, you will still need to first save it to the Queue or as a Draft, allow the video time to process, and then edit the post to publish right away. 

Troubleshooting

I'm getting a message in blue mentioning direct publishing or downloading the mobile app. 

The Post Editor will display a helpful message, personalized for the type of Instagram post you're creating, to help you set everything up correctly to publish that specific post. 

If your post can be auto-published (single-image post or short-form video) and you haven't enabled direct publishing yet, you will be presented with the option to "enable direct publishing" for this profile, and get that set up. No worries, you will only have to set that up once.

For all other posts, you will be directed to download the SmarterQueue Mobile App and set things up for our notification workflow. 


When I try to Enable Direct Publishing for my Instagram Profile I get a pop-up asking me to connect with Facebook. 

Personal Instagram Profiles don't support auto-publishing for Instagram via SmarterQueue, or any other 3rd Party Scheduler. 

To enable direct publishing, you will need to switch the profile to a Business Instagram one and then connect it to SmarterQueue through Facebook. 


I see a yellow message saying "This video is too wide/tall to be posted to Instagram natively". 

The Instagram API only supports videos of a specific ratio (between 4:5, and 1.91:1). If you add a video that is taller or wider than these ratios, we won't be able to publish the post directly.

Instead, we will send a mobile or email notification, so you can publish the post manually - this will allow you to post the image or video, cropped to fit on Instagram.


Why can't my Instagram post be published directly?

In the Post Editor, we will display a blue message at the bottom if an Instagram post will not be published directly. The message will indicate how you will be notified, and what steps you may be able to take to publish the post more easily.

There are a few reasons why some posts cannot be published directly, all due to Instagram's API restrictions:

  • Only single-image or single-video feed posts are supported. If you're trying to publish a Carousel post or a Story, it cannot be published directly.
  • Videos must be between 3 seconds and 15 minutes in length. The limit applies give or take 1 second, depending on rounding and frame rates. Longer videos can still be published via our mobile app.


Why is my Instagram account not showing up as connected to a Facebook Page? 

If you've followed all of the steps but still not seeing your Instagram account show up as connected to your Facebook Page, then this might be related to a Facebook Bug. 

Facebook has been aware of the bug since February whereby Instagram business accounts are, in some instances, not showing up as connected to a Facebook page correctly. They are working on a long-term fix for this but they do not give a timeline.

They have recommended the following solution in the interim:

  1. Using the Instagram app on a mobile device, convert your Instagram business account to a personal account.
  2. After it has been converted, log in to Facebook on a computer and convert your personal account to a business account again (Page Settings → Instagram → Switch to a Business Profile)

I would also recommend that you check the following help center article from Instagram. 

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