Two ways to connect, and how to choose
Instagram Login signs in at instagram.com with an Instagram username and password. No Facebook account, no Page, nothing to link. Use it for a client who runs Instagram and nothing else. The Facebook route reaches Instagram through a linked Facebook Page instead, and is the one to use when you also need the Page itself — Facebook posting is only available that way.
- Instagram Login — instagram_login_* tools, no Facebook account required
- Facebook Page route — meta_ads_instagram_* tools, needs a Page with the account linked
- Both can be connected at once; they are separate connections
- Either way the account must be a Professional (Business or Creator) account
What you can do
- Publish a photo, a reel, or a 2-10 image carousel
- Read recent posts with their like and comment counts
- Account stats: reach, views, profile views, follower growth
- Per-post stats: reach, saves, shares, total interactions
- Read comments, reply to them, and hide or unhide one
Connect the account
Open Connections in the dashboard and pick Instagram for the direct route, or Facebook & Instagram pages for the Page route. Instagram Login opens Instagram’s own sign-in page. You can also drive both from Social Studio at /social, which publishes and shows stats in the browser.
Things Instagram makes you live with
These are Instagram’s rules rather than ours, and each one has bitten a real integration.
- Images must be at a public URL — Instagram downloads the file itself, so a local file or a private link fails
- JPEG is the reliable format; PNG is rejected often enough not to depend on
- Publishing is always two steps, a container then a publish, and video containers need time to encode first
- Personal accounts cannot publish or read insights at all, whatever permissions are granted
- Meta retired the impressions and plays metrics on 21 April 2025 and folded them into views