How To Directly Publish Posts To Instagram Business And Creator Profiles

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

You can publish single-image posts, image carousels (up to 10 images), and Video Feed/Reel Posts (up to 15 minutes) directly to Instagram if you've connected an Instagram Business/Creator Profile. Check out how to switch your Personal Instagram profile to a Business or Creator one to get started with direct publishing today. 

Note: Posting all these posts to Instagram Personal Profiles (added as Universal Profiles), as well as Story Posts (for Personal and Creator profiles) will require that you install the SmarterQueue Mobile App, to receive notifications and publish.

Single image or video stories on Instagram Business Profiles will be directly published. 💪

In This Article

How To Enable Direct Publishing For Instagram Business And Creator Profiles

After connecting your Instagram Business or Creator Profile to SmarterQueue, ensure that direct publishing is enabled to publish your Instagram content directly. Direct publishing is available for profiles connected through Instagram.com or a linked Facebook Page.

1. Go to the Profiles section.

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

Note: Linking your Instagram Business or Creator Profile to a Facebook Page is no longer required for direct publishing.

3. Once enabled, the button will be replaced by a "Direct Publishing Enabled button".

Additionally, the bell glyph (🔔) symbolizing all publishing will be done via the notification workflow will disappear from the profile's icon.

How To Directly Publish Your Instagram Content

Here's what you need to do to ensure that your Single Image Feed, Carousel Posts, or Video Feed/Reel Posts directly publish:

1. Make sure your Instagram Profile type is eligible.

Publishing directly only works with Instagram Creator or Business Profiles. If you have a Personal one, we recommend converting it to a Creator/Business one instead.

2. Enable direct publishing in the Profiles section.

3. Set your posts to attempt direct publishing in the Post Editor.

By default, all posts will be set to “Attempt Direct Publishing” under "Instagram Publishing Method" in the Post Editor. Leaving this on will ensure that SmarterQueue will try to directly publish your post where possible.

Note: Instagram Business Profiles can also directly publish Stories. Check out additional information here on How To Schedule Story Posts To Instagram.

Check out detailed steps on how to create and publish all of your different types of Instagram posts with SmarterQueue:

Troubleshooting

1. How can I choose how to publish my Instagram content?

As you create your Instagram post you'll notice an option to choose the "Instagram Publishing Method".

By default, all posts will use “⚡ Attempt Direct Publishing”. Leaving this on will ensure that SmarterQueue will try to directly publish your post where possible. No worries, if that's not possible due to the type of Instagram Profile or media, we'll fall back to the notification workflow.

You can also select “🔔 Get a Reminder” to publish manually, even where direct publishing is possible:

  • To add music, stickers, tags, locations, or filters to the post.
  • Because direct-published stories don’t include any caption text, so by publishing manually you can paste the caption text over the story.
  • Direct-published image/video stories taller than 9:16 or wider than 1.91 will be cropped. By publishing manually, you can resize the image/video to fit within the screen
  • To manually check how your Instagram posts look before being published, rather than silently allowing content to be published (though you can still get an email confirmation whenever an Instagram post is published directly).

2. I see a yellow message saying "Instagram Feed/Reel videos taller than 9:16 will have the top and bottom cut off". 

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 will still publish the post directly, but crop it to fit the sizes.

If the video is too short or too long for direct publishing, we will instead 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.

3. Why can't my Instagram post be published directly?

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

  • Instagram Personal Profiles can't publish any type of content directly. In fact, they can't even be connected to 3rd party applications (like SmarterQueue) via Instagram's API. They can only be added as Universal Profiles.
  • For Instagram Business/Creator profiles, only Single-image, Carousel, or Video Feed/Reel posts are supported. Story posts can be published directly to Business Profiles, but not to Creator ones.
  • 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.

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

Your Instagram Profile doesn't need to be connected to a Facebook Page to publish content directly.

If you've connected your Instagram Profile to a Facebook Page to get all available stats for your Instagram posts, make sure to reconnect Instagram and select to do so via Facebook.

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 (Settings and Privacy → Settings → Linked Accounts → Instagram → Connect Account and follow the rest of the prompts).

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

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