Instagram - Frequently Asked Questions

Why am I not getting notifications on my mobile app when my team member makes Instagram posts?

When a particular team member publishes/schedules an Instagram post from the Zoho Social web, the post notification will be sent to the Zoho Social mobile app of that particular member only.

For instance; If Dave published an Instagram post, the member needs to sign in to Zoho Social mobile application with his/her login credentials, to access the post notification from the 'Notifications' (Instagram publishing) section & proceed with the Instagram publishing.

However, when another team member - "John" publishes an Instagram post, the post notification will be sent to the mobile application (logged-in as John) & other members won't receive this notification on their mobile device.

If you require receiving this post notification (for the post published by John), then you need to sign in to your mobile application using John's login credentials & proceed with publishing on Instagram.

Can I search @usernames and hashtags on Instagram?

While you can create hashtag search columns for Instagram from your monitoring tab, you can no longer search for Instagram users, due to the API changes by Instagram. However, you can continue to search for users and hashtags natively from the Instagram app.

Here's how you can create hashtag search columns from the Monitor tab:

Head over to the Monitor tab
Click the orange + on the top-left corner of the screen
From the pop-up select 'Hashtag Search', that appears under your Instagram username.
Type in a hashtag that you want to monitor and then click Save.
The column will be automatically saved to your Monitor tab.
You can also click on a particular hashtag that appears in one of your Instagram hashtag search columns, to view a pop-up of all the posts related to that hashtag.

Why am I not able to see audience demographic and personal audience details for my Instagram channel?

Due to Instagram limitations, Instagram Business profiles with fewer than 100 followers would be unable to view the audience demographic, including age, gender, location, and language.

How do I authenticate my Instagram Business Profile with a Facebook Page?

To change your Instagram account from personal to a professional account:

Go to your Instagram mobile app and head over to Settings and Privacy under Profile.
Under Account Type and Tools, tap Switch to professional account.
Click Continue until you reach a screen that prompts you to choose what best describes you.
Choose from the listed categories, then click Done.
Choose your account type as Business on the next screen, then click Next.
In order to switch to a professional account on Instagram and access features like ads, Facebook requires you to authenticate your Business Profile with a Facebook Page.
Once you have signed in to the right Facebook account, finish the setup of your professional account by adding all the information needed to complete your profile, such as a website, bio, inviting friends, adding a post and boosting it, and adding your goals.
Click Done.

To connect your Instagram professional account and Facebook account:

On your Facebook dashboard, click your profile icon in the top-right corner.
Select the Page you want to connect.
Click your Page's profile icon in the top-right corner.
Go to Settings & privacy -> Settings.
Under Permissions, click Linked accounts.
Click View next to Instagram.
Click Connect account and connect your Instagram account to Facebook.

How do I switch to Instagram's Business Profile?

To change your Instagram account from personal to a professional account:

Go to your Instagram mobile app and head over to Settings and Privacy under Profile.
Under Account Type and Tools, tap Switch to professional account.
Click Continue until you reach a screen that prompts you to choose what best describes you.
Choose from the listed categories, then click Done.
Choose your account type as Business on the next screen, then click Next.
In order to switch to a professional account on Instagram and access features like ads, Facebook requires you to authenticate your Business Profile with a Facebook Page.
Once you have signed in to the right Facebook account, finish the setup of your professional account by adding all the information needed to complete your profile, such as a website, bio, inviting friends, adding a post and boosting it, and adding your goals.
Click Done.

How is Instagram's Business Profile different from a Personal Profile?

New to Instagram's Business Profile? Read on to know the difference and follow what best suits you.

Personal Profile

You get to keep your profile private.
The performance of your profile and posts depends completely on organic reach.
You won't run into the risk being labelled as sponsored.
Third-party applications like Zoho Social don't support Instagram personal profiles.

Business Profile

Your profile gets more visibility since it is mandatory to keep Business Profiles public.
You will have to necessarily connect your Business Profile to a Facebook Page once you make the switch.
You get a few additional insights on the performance of your posts. You can run ads through a Business Profile and benefit from paid reach.

Instagram's Business Profile provides your brand with a lot more additional features than a personal profile would. For instance, you can get detailed analytics about your followers and your posts, promote your posts as ads, add links to your stories, and make it easier for your followers to contact you. Of course, it also helps that you will be able to directly publish to your Instagram profile through third-party platforms (like us) once you've made the switch. However, there are also certain things that you lose out on when you convert your profile to a Business Profile.

Firstly, Business Profiles on Instagram cannot be set to Private. That is a feature that is exclusive to Personal Profiles, so if social media privacy is really important to you, you may want to stick to a Personal Profile. Secondly, a Personal Profile on Instagram is very simple and easy to use. There are no complicated charts or columns, and no pop-ups that ask you to promote your posts. If you're not going to use many of the features of the Instagram Business Profile, then you might as well stick to the personal profile.

Why should you make the switch to a Business Profile?

As a brand, you're probably aware of what fuels business on social media: reach, engagement and conversions. While your personal profile on Instagram could be good enough to run a business with, Instagram Business profiles are tailored to give your brand the push it may need from time to time.

This includes giving you key metrics such as: knowing your audience (follower demography), when to reach them (best time to post) and how to reach them (medium with maximum engagement). While a business profile may not automatically guarantee increased engagement (likes, re-grams and comments), its features can help you reach a wider audience.

1) Key stats:

With an Instagram Business profile, you can track components that can help streamline your marketing and bring in revenue. From understanding your top-performing posts, to knowing if your audience likes pineapple on their pizza, the app's in-built analytics tool 'Instagram Insights' has you covered. You need this to know where your clicks, likes, re-grams and conversations are coming from. With this, your business can run informed polls, track best time-slots to post content and a bunch of other follower/performance details which will help carry your marketing efforts.

2) Contact made easy:

There's only so much reaching out you can do with a 'Link in bio' filler on every post. Instagram for Business lets your brand reach your audience a little more directly. You can affix a Call, Email or Direction button right above your feed, so that your audience can reach you better.

3) Adding Links to your Story:

If your business page has over 10,000 followers, you unlock the feature to add easy 'swipe up' links in your Instagram stories. This makes everything from payment gateways, to product pages only an up-swipe away.

4) Advertising your brand: Running ads and campaigns/sponsored posts:

This is perhaps the key differentiator of business and personal profiles. Once you've switched to a business profile, you can run sponsored ads on Instagram. You can create 4 types of ad campaigns using your Instagram business account - image, video, story & carousel major with your key take away being that these are targeted campaigns. With Business profiles you can even set campaign priority to specific needs like - creating traffic to page or generate engagement (likes, re-grams etc) etc.

Is there any character limit for the text included in the Instagram first comment?

Yes, there is! The maximum number of characters that can be included as an IG first comment is 2,200.

Is IG first comment available for all plans of Zoho Social?

You can add a first comment to your Instagram post only if you are subscribed to Professional, Premium, Agency, and Agency Plus Plans. It is currently unavailable on the Standard Plan.
To know more, head to our pricing page here.

How many hashtags can be included as an IG first comment?

You can add a combined maximum of 30 hashtags altogether in the post content and in the Instagram first comment.

Is adding IG first comment possible on the Android and iOS applications?

You can add Instagram First Comment to your Instagram posts from your Android and iOS applications.

Choose the desired channel as Instagram.
Click Create Post.
Add content and relevant media for the post.
Click First comment to add the comment.
Publish the post or schedule it for later.

Can I add or schedule a first comment for my Instagram posts?

Yes, you can predefine an Instagram first comment, for any Instagram post that you publish or schedule from your Zoho Social web and mobile(Android and iOS) applications. Here's how you can go about it.

Here's how you can schedule your first comment using Zoho Social.

1. Click on the New Post button on your Dashboard.

2. In the Publishing Window that opens up, choose the desired channels, curate the post and then tap the First Comment icon and include hashtags or text you wish to add as a first comment and hit the Add button.

3. Once you pre-load the first comment, you can either choose to schedule your post or video right away or for a later date using all the publishing options available.

4. Your post will be published on the chosen date and time with the first comment that you've added.

You can add a combined maximum of 30 hashtags altogether in the post content and in the Instagram first comment.

What are the different kinds of Instagram profiles I can connect to Zoho Social?

You can connect only your Instagram Business profiles to Zoho Social currently. The support for Creator profiles has been discontinued due to API restrictions.

Troubleshooting steps for connecting Instagram with Zoho Social

An Instagram business account provides a chance for businesses to strengthen their marketing game. It gives detailed analytics about post performance, followers demographics, and the ability to advertise and promote ads. Similar to this is the Facebook page, where artists, public figures, organizations, and businesses can connect with their audience.

To optimize the usage of the features and tools available for your Instagram Business account, you have to link it to a Facebook page. By doing this, businesses who manage both channels will be able to post the same content to both places simultaneously, hence reducing the efforts. You can manage your messages from a unified inbox, sync all your business information, run ads on both platforms, set up Instagram shopping, and gain access to cross-app tools and various other business features.

Once you have authorized your Instagram Business Profile with a Facebook Page, you can access features like Direct Publishing, commenting, and creating hashtag search columns on Zoho Social. Read more about why Facebook requires you to do this.

New Pages:

The New Pages experience on Facebook has been introduced as a resource for public figures, businesses, and others who want to build and connect with an audience, and manage their professional presence on Facebook. This comes with a redesigned layout and improved features to make the platform look more advanced.

The Facebook new page gives you access to new page management features, like the ability to assign and manage admin access permissions based on specific tasks.

All these business tools and features are only available if your connected Instagram account is a business account, as personal accounts can't be integrated via third-party apps.

If your Instagram account is a personal or creator account, you can convert it to a business account in the web app.

Reasons why you're unable to connect your Instagram account to Zoho Social:

Your Instagram Business account is not properly connected with its Facebook Page.
There are missing permissions for Zoho Social in your Facebook settings.
You are yet to resolve missing alerts about your connection in Facebook - Meta Business Suite.

Here are some detailed troubleshooting steps to fix these issues, and connect your channels without any setbacks.

Fix your connection

To review the connection or to connect your Instagram and Facebook in New Pages:

Go to business.facebook.com and switch to your Facebook business page.
Check for alerts on the homepage.
Click Get Started and confirm to provide access.
Authenticate by logging into your Instagram account. This will confirm the connection and redirect you to Zoho Social.
To update missing permissions in New Pages:

Log in to Facebook and switch to your admin profile by clicking the profile photo at the top-right corner.
Go to Settings & privacy -> Settings -> Business integrations.
Click View and edit next to Zoho Social.
Tick all the required permissions for your Facebook Page.
Click Save.
Click View and edit once more to review the provided permissions.

To initiate/check the connection in New Pages:

Go to Facebook and navigate to your Pages list.
Select the Facebook Page to be associated with your Instagram account.
Go to Settings & privacy -> Settings -> Linked Accounts.
Check if your Instagram account is listed. If not, authenticate and add the account.
Once done, review if your Instagram account appears next to the Facebook Page in the left panel of your Meta Business Suite.

To initiate/check the connection in Instagram mobile app:

Go to your profile by tapping in the bottom right of your Instagram mobile app and click Edit Profile.
Click Page and add your Facebook page.

You can either link to an existing facebook page, or disconnect and associate with the right facebook page.

We hope this helped resolve your issue.

If the connection problem persists, please reach out to the support team at support@zohosocial.com and share a screenshot of your Facebook page settings -> Instagram account for troubleshooting.

How do I optimize an image while directly posting to Instagram?

If you manage an Instagram Business Profile on Zoho Social, here's what you need to know:

Instagram

Image (Post, Stories)
File Format	PNG, JPEG, JPG, and GIF for Posts and JPEG for Stories
Dimensions	No limitations
Aspect Ratio	Between 1.91:1 and 4:5 for Posts and 9:16 is recommended for Stories
File Size	8 MB
Video (Post and Stories)
File Format	MOV or MP4 (MPEG-4 Part 14)
Dimensions	Maximum width of 1920 Pixels
Aspect Ratio	Between 0.8 and 1.78
Duration	Between 3s and 60s
File Size	100 MB for Post and Stories
Audio CODEC	AAC, 48khz sample rate maximum, 1 or 2 channels (mono or stereo)
Video CODEC	HEVC or H264, progressive scan, closed GOP, 4:2:0 chroma subsampling
Audio Bitrate	128 kbps
Video Bitrate	VBR, 25 Mbps maximum
Frame Rate	23-60 FPS
Reels
File Format	MOV or MP4 (MPEG-4 Part 14) for Post and Stories
Dimensions	Maximum width of 1920 Pixels
Aspect Ratio	Between 0.01:1 and 10:1
Duration	Between 3s and 15 mins
File Size	1 GB
Audio CODEC	AAC, 48khz sample rate maximum, 1 or 2 channels (mono or stereo).
Video CODEC	HEVC or H264, progressive scan, closed GOP, 4:2:0 chroma subsampling
Audio Bitrate	128 kbps
Video Bitrate	VBR, 25Mbps maximum
Frame Rate	23-60 FPS

You can ensure to upload an image that falls within the mentioned specifications, else you can also make use of the image editor for editing images, and video optimizer for optimizing videos according to specific network requirements.

How does Instagram repost work on Zoho Social?

Only Instagram Business Profiles can repost images and videos on from the Hashtag search columns and pop-ups from the Monitor tab.

You can find additional sources of images and videos to Repost right from the Monitor tab. You can set up hashtag search columns in the Monitor tab to discover relevant posts that you’d like to repost for your audience.

Here's how you can create hashtag search columns from the Monitor tab:

Head over to the Monitor tab
Click the orange + on the top-left corner of the screen
Select 'Hashtag Search', that appears under Instagram.
Type in a hashtag that you want to monitor and then click Save.
The column will be automatically saved to your Monitor tab.
You can also click on a particular hashtag that appears in one of your Instagram hashtag search columns, to view a pop-up of all the posts related to that hashtag.

Follow these steps to repost content directly from the Monitor tab:

You will find a Repost option on each Instagram post that you see in the Monitor tab.

1) Click the Monitor tab on the left panel.

2) Go to any of your Instagram hashtag columns that you have created for likes, keyword or user searches.

3) You will see a Repost icon on posts as shown below in the all the Instagram hashtag search columns

4) You can also click on a particular hashtag to view all the posts related to that tag.

5) Click the Repost icon that appears on the Instagram post you want to republish from the Hashtag pop-up or search column.

6) In the popup that appears, you will see an information strip that says "Please seek permission from the original photographer before you repost. Learn more". You can click the Learn More link to view the Terms and Conditions for Reposting before you proceed.

7) The content used in the original post will be automatically copied to your screen.

8) You can choose to edit the caption and then click the Repost button to share the post with your followers directly.

Currently, you will not be able to schedule Reposts.

Why can't I 'Like' or 'Comment' on Instagram updates from my Monitor tab?

Unfortunately, this is one of the features that was withdrawn after an Instagram API deprecation came into effect.

Why am I unable to monitor Instagram users and keywords on Zoho Social?

Due to Instagram's decision to deprecate it's API, some of the features— including adding monitoring columns (user-specific posts, user search, post view from liking/commenting from monitor tab) are not available to users.

Why can't I see my Instagram Connections?

Viewing your Instagram Connections in the Connections tab isn't possible anymore due to Instagram API restrictions. However you can view your Facebook and X connections in the Connections tab.

Can I publish a post with multiple media files to Instagram directly from Zoho Social?

Yes, you can post to Instagram with either up to 10 images or videos (combination).

Can I publish posts on Instagram directly from the Zoho Social mobile application?

Yes, you can publish posts to your Instagram professional accounts directly from the Zoho Social mobile application on your Android device.

Click the New post button and select Create Post.
Choose the Instagram channel icon.
Add the required media files and a relevant caption, then publish.

If the added media files don't fit the requirements of Instagram, you will be asked to publish the post via Manual Publishing. Alternatively, you can edit your media files according to the guidelines and continue posting.

Can I tag images and add a location when I post to Instagram and Facebook via Zoho Social?

Yes, you can tag profiles on images on Instagram and add a location to your posts on Facebook and Instagram.

To tag accounts in an image:

Click Tag Accounts in the compose window once you've attached the required images for the post.
Click anywhere on the image to tag accounts.
Enter the exact username and click tick () to save the tag.

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