About Instagram Poster
To use the Instagram Poster you need to have:
1. Instagram business account.
2. Facebook account.
3. Your Instagram account connected to one of your Facebook pages.
F.A.Q.: Why do I have to have a Facebook account to use the Instagram tools?
Other useful tutorials:
- How to create an Instagram account. Tutorial
- How to create a Facebook account. Tutorial
- How to create a Facebook page. Tutorial
- How to connect a Facebook page with an Instagram account. Tutorial
To be able to create an Instagram posting campaign you need to sign up for any of RSS Ground membership plans.
You can have one or several posting campaigns running simultaneously depending on your membership level limits.
See the user guide on how to create a posting campaign.
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Content
In the Content section, you add your content feeds. And Advanced settings will fine-tune the algorithm of selecting the content from the feeds for the next post.
To add feeds to your posting campaign press Add content. Use the Import feeds option to manually add one or several content feeds. Your feeds will be added to this posting campaign and automatically saved to your Feeds Box.
If you already have your feeds saved in the Feeds Box, use the From Feeds Box option.
Note: you can use up to 10 content feeds in one posting campaign.
Advanced settings are optional.
Post items - here you set the order in which content from your feeds will be processed and selected for posting.
- Only new - only content appeared in the feeds after the previous campaign run will be used for posting.
- From newest to oldest - if there is no new content in the feeds, most fresh but not yet posted content will be used for posting.
- From oldest to newest - feeds' content will be posted starting from the oldest.
- Randomly - random content from specified feeds will be posted.
If you wish to post only recent news to your Instagram account, you are recommended to use Only new option.
If you wish to ensure the gradual update of your Instagram account, you are recommended to use From newest to oldest option.
If you make posts from content feeds where timestamp does not matter, for example, product feeds or affiliate feeds, you may use the Random option.
Note: Posting campaign uses one feed's item for one post at a time, and no matter what option was used in the Post items option, duplicate content will never be used for posting, unless you use recycling.
Enable recycling - this option allows you to re-post already posted content over again.
Re-post items - you can set a limit to re-post the same content up to 5 times or choose Indefinitely - to re-post the same content an unlimited number of times.
The recycling option can be good for affiliate product feeds, or other content feeds where unique content is not a priority. Please use this option very carefully. Social networks don't like duplicate content.
Post only items with these keywords - specify one or several content filter keywords. Only content which mentions at least one of the specified keywords in its title or description will be posted.
Don't post items with these keywords - specify one or several content filter keywords. Content that mentions at least one of the specified keywords in its title or description will be excluded from posting.
Don't post items without images - some content feeds may contain items that don't have any images in them. This option will allow you to ignore such items.
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Posting
In the Posting section, you authenticate your Facebook user. Press Authenticate button, follow the steps and grant our app all requested permissions. Advanced posting settings will help to customize your Instagram posts.
Note: You can make posts only to your Instagram business accounts. Other accounts won't be visible here. To make your Instagram account business, you need to connect it to one of your Facebook pages. See the tutorial on how to connect a Facebook page with an Instagram account.
Note: When you authenticate your Facebook user you obtain a token that allows you to make remote posts to your Instagram account. We save this token on our end. This token expires every 60 days, and you need to re-authenticate your Facebook user. We will send you a notification with all instructions when your current token is expired.
As soon as your Facebook user is authenticated My Instagram accounts option will appear. In the dropdown menu, you will see a list of your Instagram business accounts. Select one of the Instagram accounts you wish to send posts to.
Enable integration - as soon you activate this option, you will be able to choose this campaign from the list in the trigger settings in Zapier, IFTTT or Pabbly Connect. With every campaign run, your integration platform(s) will be triggered and proceed with an action.
Learn:
How to set up IFTTT applet for RSS Ground
How to connect RSS Ground to Zapier
How to use RSS Ground with Pabbly Connect
Advanced settings are optional.
Add item's title to post - the item's title will be added to the image caption.
Add item's description to post - the item's description will be added to the image caption.
Add item's link to post - the item's link will be added to the image caption. The link will be added as plain text, not as a hyperlink.
Use <category> as hashtag - some content feeds utilize <category> code tag that may contain original content tags and blog categories. You can apply this option to automatically use these tags as hashtags in your post.Hashtags pool - here you can specify a pool of up to 100 hashtags that will be added to the image caption in random order. Up to 10 hashtags can be added at once.
Use a random number of hashtags - set a range for the number of hashtags to be added to the image caption. Maximum values 10-10. This range is also applied to the Use <category> as hashtag option.
With the help of hashtags pool and number randomization, you can add a random number of random hashtags to image captions. This can be useful for content promotion and optimization. If you don't want to use randomization, just set the random number range equal to the number of hashtags used, like 3-3.
Please remember about the necessity to include an affiliate disclosure to any post that features affiliate products. Affiliate disclosure is a statement that makes it clear there is an affiliate relationship between a publisher and a brand. You can use #ad or #sponsored as a disclosure for your posts in case you use affiliate feeds in your posting campaigns. Read more about affiliate disclosure
Add custom text to post - specify your custom text (call to action, slogan, "read more", or else) to add to the image caption. The same text will be added to each image caption. Only plain text (no HTML) is allowed in this field. Maximum length - 250 symbols.
Append post links - append any tag or parameter to the item links added to the image caption. This can be any affiliate ID, tracking tags, or anything else. For example:?utm_source=instagram&utm_campaign=rssground
You can append not only link parameters, but also link fragments. If you add a fragment (#your_fragment), make sure you enter it with the "hash" symbol (#), otherwise, it will be counted as a parameter (?your_fragment).
Read more about query strings and fragments.
Shorten & track links - here you can choose to shorten links in your tweets with one of the shortening services. Some shortener services may require your personal API keys. Bit.ly shorten service also allows you to use tags with its short URLs. This will allow you to filter these short URLs in your Bit.ly account.
However, you can choose not to shorten your links.
Note: there is a limit to the number of symbols that can be used in the image caption: 2200 symbols. This includes the symbols used for the item's title, item's description, item's link with an appendix, hashtags, and custom tags. If the limit is excited, the length of the posted text will be automatically shortened.
Example of an Instagram post with all content elements included:
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Automation
In the Automation section, you set your posting campaign timing: how often your posting campaign should make posts. Advanced automation settings allow the implementation of a more flexible schedule for your posting campaign.
Posting Frequency - how often you wish to make posts. The minimum time interval between posts depends on your membership level: from once "every 24 hours" for the Basic level, to "every 30 minutes" for the Business level.
Test post - use this option to test-run or simply make a manual post. Read more about test post option
Note: as soon as you hit Test run current campaign settings will be automatically saved.
Advanced settings are optional.
Run campaign - set the campaign to run continuously or on certain days.
Run campaign = Always – the campaign will run on every day of the week
Run campaign = Specific Days & Times – you can select days of the week and time periods for your posts.
Here you can set to run your campaign only on weekdays (Days to run campaign) or avoid making posts at night time (Time to run campaign).
You can also set a delayed start of your campaign and date to automatically stop it.
Pay attention to the time zone setting. By default, your local (set on your computer) time zone is selected. But you can choose any time zone to adjust your posting campaign timing.
Read more about posting campaign automation.
When you are done with settings, press SAVE. Now you can find your posting campaign in the Posting Campaigns section of your RSS Ground account. You can add or remove feeds, and edit your campaign when you need.
Your posting campaign will run on complete autopilot. You can view the posting camping log to monitor its performance. Also, you can set up an automated email notifications to receive instant or daily posting reports.
See the links below for more information.
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Useful articles:
How to create a posting campaign
Setting up a posting campaign the best way
Posting campaign automation settings
Managing posting campaigns and reading posting campaign log
Posting campaigns email notifications
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