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How to auto post to Instagram?

ID #1099

Reading time: ~ 0 min

Last update: 2020-07-03 14:10

Sharing your blog post with images on Instagram can significantly increase your engagement rate and blog traffic. To automatically share your images and schedule your image posts to Instagram, can help you to save time and cumbersome manual work. However, Instagram was not designed for auto-posting or uploading images from your PC or blog and aims at keeping the conversation on a social and human level. And, Instagram has strict community rules and a severe posting policy you should respect. Learn how to share your images on Instagram with links to your blog post to get more outreach and visibility for your posts and how to auto-post to Instagram with Blog2Social.

Why sharing your images to Instagram?

Instagram is one of the fastest-growing social networks and has a huge and diverse community of more than 1.2 billion active users. And, simply put, images are more interesting than the text. The power of visuals cannot be overstated. And, research shows that images generate more likes, comments, shares, and clicks than other post types. That’s because images stir up emotions like no other medium. And therefore, our brain processes visual content more easily than plain text. So, if you want to leave a lasting impression, share your blog images on Instagram!

Why you should connect your blog to Instagram

Images, pictures, and graphics stay longer in our memory - and they are connected to the text or blog post they have been shared with. So, images are not just a real eye-catcher, but help your readers to remember your content more easily. And, if you share your blog posts URL with your images, pictures, or graphics on Instagram, you drive more traffic to your blog post and increase your overall outreach.

Why you should share different images of the same blog post when auto-posting to Instagram

It can make sense to select other images then the featured image to promote your post. Especially when your blog post contains more than one image. Post all shareable images and graphics of your blog post over several days and vary between the comments and hashtags. And, the same applies to the re-sharing of images and graphics. This makes your feed look more diverse and engaging. Plus, it gives your shared images a more personal and introducing touch. Additionally, you can extend the lifetime of your blog content by sharing various images of the same blog post.

[Infographic] How often to share your blog post to Instagram and other social networks

However, manually sharing your posts across all your Instagram profiles can be quite time-consuming. Therefore, when connecting your blog to Instagram for auto-posting, make sure to apply a plugin that enables you to add different images to your Instagram posts and schedule them for the best times to auto post on Instagram.

What to keep in mind when auto-posting to Instagram

Like mentioned before, Instagram has a very complex algorithm and a severe SPAM policy. Instagram does not care about automation as long as you keep it "humanely". However, the Instagram algorithm does notice things that are hard or unusual to do from a mobile phone:

Post frequency: Do not post more posts st a time, than you would do manually. And schedule your post at times that are not uncommon for postings. So, if you post 5 posts per minute and you post around the clock, your account will most certainly become suspicious.
Links: Instagram does not support links at all. You can add an URL to your description, but it won’t be clickable. An URL is a good way to drive your followers to your blog for further information, i.e. if you are posting recipes or other instructions. However, Instagram might consider your posts as suspicious, if your links are not relevant to your content or if you post too many similar or shortened URLs.
Hashtags: Hashtags are very popular on Instagram and allow you to post up to 30 hashtags. However, Instagram might consider posts with the most popular tags as suspicious. So, try to make your #hashtags more unique and mix popular #hashtags with more specific #hashtags. Sometimes, less is more.
New accounts: Instagram always watches new accounts very carefully. The older an account is, the less likely the account will be considered as suspicious.
Social engagement and social signals: Engagement is the most important factor for accounts to be considered human and relevant. If you follow people and they follow back and your followers like, share and comment on your posts, these social signals will be a strong factor for the Instagram algorithms to consider your account as relevant, social, and human.

If you already got hit by the Instagram SPAM filter, make several manual posts from your phone and share your images without any links or hashtags. Engage with your friends and followers. As soon as your account is considered human, Instagram will deselect your account as “spam” after some time.

How to auto-post to Instagram directly from your blog with Blog2Social

Blog2Social helps you to avoid spending the majority of your working hours with manually posting images to Instagram.

You can select individual images, vary your hashtags, and schedule your posts at different times and auto post to Instagram. You can set up your entire Instagram promotion within a couple of clicks.

To connect Blog2Social to Instagram for auto-posting, please go to "Social Media Networks" within the Blog2Social menu. Here you find an overview of all the networks you can connect to Blog2Social.
To auto post to Instagram, please click on "Connect Business" if you like to share your posts on your Instagram Business Account.

Please note: Your Instagram Business Account will be connected to Blog2Social via Facebook. Therefore, please make sure that your Instagram Business Account is linked to a Facebook page and that you have admin rights for this Facebook page. More information on the Instagram Business Account in the guide "How do I connect Blog2Social with my Instagram Business Account?".

After you've authorized your Instagram account, you can auto post to Instagram and automatically share your images, pictures and graphics with your followers.

Extra-Tip: You can auto-post to Instagram, whenever you publish or update a post, or you can select individual images for Instagram, edit your comments and schedule your post.

To do so you have two different options. When you are done with editing your blog post, you can click on “Customize & Schedule Social Media Post” in the right sidebar of your WordPress editor.

Or you can go to your Blog2Social Dashboard, select “Site & Blog Content” and select the blog posts you want to share.

Both options will lead you to the Blog2Social one-page preview editor, where you can customize your posts for each network, select individual images for each post, and schedule your social media posts. To change the featured image and select an individual picture to go with your blog post, simply click on the images frame and a pop-up window will open.

Depending on your Blog2Social license you can choose between the following options:

1. Select one of your blog posts images.

2. Choose to apply this image selection for all connected social networks.
3. Choose your selected image as an individual image for this particular social network.
4. Select and upload an image from your media gallery.

You can also individualize your post with hashtags, emojis or @handles.
When you are done with editing your post, you can click on "Share". And you are done!