How do I use the mobile publishing workflow for Instagram Stories?
New to Sprout Social? Learn more about our Instagram management tools here.
Use Sprout's Instagram mobile publishing workflow to post Instagram Stories and Instagram Carousel posts.
Using this workflow, create your posts in Sprout's desktop or mobile app, then assign a Mobile Publisher to publish the content to your Instagram account based on the time/day you specify. You can post up to 10 videos and images for Instagram Stories.
Note: If you're posting a single photo or video, you don't need to use the mobile publishing workflow. Follow this how-to instead.
This article contains the following sections:
- Instagram publishing workflow
- How do I publish a Story on iOS?
- How do I publish a Story on Android?
- What actions can Mobile Publishers take on desktop?
- How do I preview my Instagram Grid?
Instagram mobile publishing workflow
You can schedule posts and Instagram Story posts using Sprout's mobile app publishing workflow.
Using this workflow, you'll create your post from Sprout’s desktop, and then send that post to your Mobile Publisher on an iOS or Android device.
A notification appears in the app for the Mobile Publisher to complete the process.
Mobile Publisher
Your Mobile Publisher is the person who is responsible for publishing posts to Instagram. If a user shows up in the Mobile Publisher dropdown list in the Publishing Workflows section of the Compose window, it means they have both Needs Approval and Read Only access for that Instagram profile and enabled push notifications in their Sprout mobile app.
If a team member disables Sprout push notifications on their mobile device, they won’t show up in the Mobile Publisher list to avoid missing a timely post.
Note: You can only select one person as Mobile Publisher. You can change publishers prior to the scheduled posting time by editing the post.
When an Instagram post is ready for publishing, the Mobile Publisher receives a push notification on mobile device.
How do I publish a Story with the iOS app?
To publish the Story on an iOS device:
- Tap the Story Push Notification you receive or navigate to Publishing > Reminders and tap on the Story you want to publish.
- Tap Continue to Instagram. A list of reminders appears.
- Review the reminders and then tap OK, I’m ready to post. The Instagram app opens.
- Note, if you haven’t published using the app before, tap Allow Access to All Photos on the permission popup.
- Tap the + icon in the top right corner and select Story from the list.
- Select the media from your device that was downloaded from Sprout.
- Navigate back to the Sprout app and tap
to copy and paste any Story Notes or Link Sticker URLs. - Paste Story Notes on the media they correspond with.
- Paste Link Sticker URLs into the Link Sticker option that Instagram provides for Stories.
- Tap
in Instagram to post.
How do I publish a Story using the Android app?
To publish the Story on an Android device:
- Tap the Push Notification you receive or navigate to Publishing > Reminders, and tap on the Story you want to publish.
- Tap Continue to Instagram. A list of reminders appears.
- Review the reminders and then tap OK, I’m ready to post. The Instagram app opens.
- Tap the + icon in the bottom center of the Instagram app to toggle to Story.
- Select the media from your device that was downloaded from Sprout.
- Navigate back to the Sprout app and tap to copy and paste any Story Notes or Link Sticker URLs.
- Paste Story Notes on the media they correspond with.
- Paste Link Sticker URLs into the Link Sticker option that Instagram provides for Stories.
- Tap in Instagram to post.
What actions can Mobile Publishers take in desktop?
Mobile Publishers can delete, resend or mark notifications complete on Sprout desktop.
If a push notification is sent to the Instagram Publisher, but not passed to the Instagram app, a purple clock icon notification appears at the bottom with the name of the publisher.
Once the Instagram Publisher sends the post to Instagram via the Sprout mobile app, the purple clock icon switches to a green paper airplane, letting you know that the post was shared.
Note: Instagram Publishers can’t change after the notification is sent. If you need to choose a different Publisher after a notification has been sent, delete the notification and recreate the Instagram post.
How can I preview my Instagram Grid?
From Sprout's mobile app, you can get a preview of what your Instagram Grid will look like once your scheduled posts go live.
From the Publishing Calendar in the mobile app, tap 
under the post to see what your Instagram Grid will look like on that given day.
