How do I publish a grid post to Instagram?

If you have a connected Instagram Business Profile to Sprout, you can publish a single photo or video directly to Instagram via Sprout's desktop app.

Note: If you are posting an Instagram Story post you must use Sprout's Mobile Publishing workflow. Review this article to for more details on using the Mobile Publishing workflow.

This article contains the following sections:

• Getting started
• Creating an Instagram post
• Tagging considerations for Professional & Advanced Plans

Getting started

Before you publish to Instagram, make sure that you convert your Instagram profile to an Instagram Business Profile, and then connect that Business Profile to Sprout.

If you're not familiar with Instagram Business Profiles, read our pre-connection article.

Tip: A quick way to verify if your Instagram Business Profile has been successfully connected to Sprout is to check the  and see if it's gray. If it is, that means that choosing a Publisher for your Instagram post is optional and the image can be published directly to your profile.

Creating an Instagram post

To create your Instagram post and assign an Instagram Publisher:

1. Open Compose in Sprout desktop or mobile app.
2. Select your Instagram Business Profile from the Profile Picker.
3. Add your content and media for the post:
   • You can mention other Instagram users by using @. Note that this won't display a list of all Instagram users you follow, so make sure you know exactly how the profile name is spelled.
   • Add images, GIFs and videos from your computer, Asset Library, Bynder, Canva, Dropbox or Google Drive using . You can crop and edit photos using . Drag and drop images in the order you want them to appear.
     •  Sprout recommends that your videos meet the following criteria for Instagram publishing: 
       • File extensions: .MP4 or .MOV
       • Frame Rate: 23-60 FPS
       • Duration: 3-60 seconds
       • File Size: 100 MB or less
       • Horizontal pixels: 1920p
       • Maximum bitrate: 5 Mbps
       • Must be H.264 not H.VEC

       If a video falls outside of these criteria, Sprout automatically makes an attempt to transcode the video on the fly into the video recommendations and resubmits it on your behalf. If you still can't publish the video, use the Mobile App Publishing Workflow.

       
       
       
4. (Optional) If you’re posting a video, you can use the arrows to select your thumbnail. And add any hashtags.
   
   
5. (Optional) Add a location to tag your business or let customers know where you're located.
   • Click , select Instagram and then enter the name of the location.
6. (Optional) Toggle This is a Draft on if you're creating a Draft post.
7. Choose your Instagram Options:
   • (Optional) - Add details for your Instagram First Comment.
   • (Optional) - Add a Post Link to appear in your SproutLink site.
     
     
8. Choose your Publishing Workflows:
   • (Optional) - Use your Approval Workflow to select who needs to approve your post content.
   • (Optional) Mobile Publisher - Select your Mobile Publisher from the dropdown. ONLY use this option if you're scheduling an Instagram Story or Carousel post. For more information, see this how-to.
     
     
9. Choose your Sprout Tags (for Professional and Advanced plans):
   • (Optional) - Enter the name of any applicable labels.
   • (Optional) - Enter the name of any campaigns the post is a part of. 
     
     
     • See Tagging considerations at the end of this article if you're a Professional or Advanced Plan user.
10. Choose when to post:
    • Select Immediately, Auto schedule with Sprout Queue or Specific Days & Times.
      
      
11. Click Submit or Send. The post is sent for review, if applicable, and send to your Mobile Publisher.

Tagging considerations for Professional and Advanced Plans

You can incorporate Instagram content as you plan out your Publishing calendar by tagging posts as they're being composed. However, due to API limitations, Instagram posts that are tagged as they're composed don’t retain their tags after they're published. To gather reporting data for the Tag Performance Report on these posts, tag these posts from the Post Performance Report after they're published to Instagram.