Wondering how to link Instagram and Facebook?
You’ve come to the right place.
These days, Instagram and Facebook are two of the most popular social media platforms in the world. Instagram is the go-to solution for aesthetic visual posts, with more than 1 billion users around the world. If you want to appeal to a modern audience with a taste for attractive pictures and videos, then Instagram is the place to be.
On the other hand, Facebook is the ultimate option for a broader reach. With 2.5 billion people using at least one of the apps available from Facebook, this channel reaches just about anyone and everyone online.
Since Instagram and Facebook are both owned by the same people, there’s some good news for your social media marketing strategy. You don’t necessarily need to decide whether you should choose a Facebook-focused or Instagram campaign to drive your brand’s growth. Instead, you can get the best of both worlds by learning how to link Instagram and Facebook for a simple cross-platform promotion strategy.
Read on to learn everything you need to know about connecting Instagram and Facebook, and why it’s so important to have a robust social reach online.
Why Link Instagram and Facebook Anyway?
Before we begin exploring the technical side of linking your Facebook and Instagram posts, it’s worth looking at why you should connect these two platforms in the first place.
The most obvious answer is that you’ll be able to share your posts to a broader range of potential prospects by using two social media platforms at once. When your photos automatically share on Facebook at the same time you post to Instagram, you’re boosting your chances of brand reach. People who might not catch your content on Instagram will have a second chance to see it on Facebook too.
What’s more, although Instagram is rapidly growing in popularity, Facebook still has a slightly higher user base than Instagram. This means that you’ll be able to connect with customers who might not have an Instagram account yet. You’ll even see an increase in your company’s SEO, as Google will be able to see more authoritative locations linking back to your website when you have multiple social media pages.
If you know that parts of your target audience exist in both Instagram and Facebook, then connecting the two platforms is a no-brainer. You get a seamless connection between services with very little hard work required. Everything happens automatically, so you can essentially access twice the reach for the same amount of effort.
How to Link Instagram and Facebook: Step by Step
If you’ve considered a cross-promotional social media campaign before, but you’ve been put off by the concept of adding more confusing steps to your marketing strategy, don’t panic. Linking your Facebook and Instagram accounts is much easier than you might think.
Remember, you’re going to need a business account on both Facebook and Instagram if you want to make the most of two connected channels. Upgrading to a business account will give you access to things like promotions, targeting, and paid ads. Additionally, it will make sure that you can tap into the analytics features available from Instagram and Facebook, to figure out whether posting on both profiles at the same idea is the right idea for you.
Step 1:
To start, all you need to do is open your Instagram application on your smartphone and head to the Profile screen. Tapping the three horizontal lines in the top-right corner of your page will take you to the menu list. Here, you can click on the Settings feature at the bottom of your screen.
From Settings, click on the “Accounts tab,” then go into “Linked Accounts.”
Here, you’ll be able to see the profiles that you can seamlessly connect with your Instagram profile.
Step 2:
Aside from Facebook, there’s also the option to integrate with other social media pages, such as Tumblr. Although we recommend starting with Facebook as your first cross-promotional choice. Tap on the “Facebook” option, and Instagram will ask you to sign in to your Facebook account.
You’ll need to enter your login credentials either on the Facebook app (if you have it downloaded on your phone), or your mobile browser.
Once you’re signed in, sharing content simultaneously on Facebook and Instagram becomes much simpler.
Step 3:
With your Facebook and Instagram accounts connected, you’ll automatically have the “Share to Facebook” option toggled on whenever you post an image on Instagram. You’ll also be able to toggle this option off if you only want to share certain content on both profiles.
To take a step backward and share a previous picture on Instagram, choose the image, video, or Instagram Story that you want to share from your Instagram profile page and tap on the three lines in the top right corner. You’ll need to tap on the “Share” button to access a pop-up menu that allows you to toggle the slider beside your Facebook account – like in the image above.
How to Stop Linking Instagram and Facebook
So, now you know how to link Instagram and Facebook, but what if you want to stop connecting the two accounts? After all, you might decide that the profiles are both effective at reaching different audiences, which means creating separate content strategies.
The good news is that you’re not stuck once you’ve connected your accounts. Instagram will allow you to remove the integration with Facebook at any time, for any reason. All you need to do is head back to the “Linked Accounts” menu that we mentioned earlier:
Here, you’ll be able to tap on “Facebook” again, where you’ll see the name of your Facebook account displayed under a title that says, “Share To.” Underneath that, you’ll have a preferences tab, where you can decide if you want to automatically share videos and photos from your Instagram account to your Facebook profile.
If you toggle the “Share” option on, then it will automatically cross-promote your material on Facebook when you update Instagram. Toggle it off, so it looks like the image below, and you’ll have to add the integration separately.
Click the “Unlink” button to remove your Facebook profile from Instagram altogether.
Usually, removing the link between Facebook and Instagram will be the best route forward if you find that your audience on both accounts differs, or if you decide that each channel needs a personalized strategy. You might also determine that you can get better results on Facebook and Instagram if you post at different times with unique content and hashtags – even if that does mean putting in extra work.
Should You Link Instagram and Facebook?
Linking Facebook and Instagram won’t be the right option for everyone.
While some people will find it helpful to have two social media channels running together, others will need to maintain very separate strategies for Facebook and Instagram.
On the plus side, if you do think that you should learn how to link Instagram and Facebook, there’s a lot of evidence to show that this could be a good move. On the Facebook business website, there are plenty of case studies of companies using Instagram and Facebook together. For instance, the MVMT watches brand was able to reduce its cost per conversion for 20% for each lead.
To determine whether linking Instagram and Facebook is a good idea for you, ask yourself whether you have similar audiences on both platforms that you can reach more effectively with a combined campaign.
If the answer is yes, try the following tips to make your dual-platform marketing more effective.
Step 1: Make the Most of Your Captions
important to create plenty of rich content for your Facebook campaigns, complete with emojis, images, and even videos – your captions will count too.
Captions on both Instagram and Facebook give you a chance to expand your reach and connect with your customers. They’ll help you to drive people back to your websites with links through Facebook, and reach new audience members through hashtags on Instagram. To ensure you’re getting the most out of your Instagram and Facebook posts, I’d recommend ensuring that your captions are going to resonate with your audience on both channels.
Don’t forget to add a handful of hashtags even if you know that they won’t do much for your Facebook posts – these tags are crucial for Instagram.
Step 2: Make Your Formatting Fantastic
Although posting to Facebook and Instagram at the same time can seem like a great way to save yourself some effort, remember that you’ll need to make sure that you get the formatting right for both accounts. The good news is that many of the features on Facebook and Instagram are similar. You can @Mention other people and ensure that you’re linking to influencers and specific companies. However, your @Mentions might not work if people have a different username on Facebook than on Instagram – so double check in advance.
You should also be careful when it comes to things like image size and resolution between Facebook Instagram. The last thing you want is for your videos, Stories, or other social media posts to look strange because you haven’t figured out how to link Instagram and Facebook properly.
Keep in mind that just because you can get away with using up to 30 hashtags on your Instagram posts, doesn’t mean that you can do the same thing on Facebook too. Although there’s plenty of character space on Facebook for endless hashtags, too much will make you look spammy on this social channel.
Step 3: Always Follow a Strategy
Just because you know how to link Facebook and Instagram, doesn’t mean that you should start doing it without creating a solid plan first. Posting the same photos on each profile might work for some companies, but others will need to adjust their strategy depending on the kind of audience they attract to each social channel.
Instead of just sharing content randomly and making sure that you publish on various channels at once, bring some strategy to your campaign. Look at your Facebook Analytics and Instagram insights to see when your followers are online on each account. Pay attention to which of your profile posts get the most attention, and whether you’re more likely to earn engagement for one type of content on Facebook than you are on Instagram.
Watching your analytics carefully will ensure that you’re making the most of your cross-promotional campaign. You might even discover that sharing content on Facebook and Instagram at the same time isn’t the right solution for you.
Learning How to Link Instagram and Facebook
Today, around 73% of companies are posting at least one video or image on Instagram every week. As new generations enter the consumer market, and the buyer journey evolves, Instagram is becoming an excellent way to attract audience attention. Get your content strategy right, and you can even form deeper connections with your customers, encouraging them to refer new leads to your business and improve your chances of future sales.
However, there’s more to succeeding in social media than just connecting as many accounts as possible. While it’s helpful to have a presence on various channels at once, not every social media channel works the same way. Sometimes you can get better results if you take the extra time to create separate strategies for every profile you want to use.
Don’t just assume that your social channels can thrive with a set-it-and-forget-it approach to social media marketing. If you do link your Facebook and Instagram channels, keep a close eye on the results you get and get ready to adapt your campaigns accordingly.