In this article, we'll cover:

How to connect your Instagram account
1. Connecting through a Facebook page
2. Connecting through a username
Instagram supported media types and size limits
1. Automatic publishing specifications for images
2. Automatic publishing specification for Reels
Instagram features
1. Post types
2. Publishing features
3. Interactions
4. Analytics
5. Grid Preview
6. Post Sponsoring

1. How to connect your Instagram account

You can connect your Instagram account from the Social Accounts tab of the Calendar Settings:

The next steps will depend on the settings of your Instagram account. We currently support the following Instagram accounts types:

Connecting through an associated Facebook Page for Instagram Professional Accounts (Business & Creator)

Click on the Connect button

Select the Facebook page connected to the Instagram account from the dropdown > Click Create Connection

Connecting by username for Instagram Personal or Professional Accounts (Business & Creator) without a Facebook page

Click the link "click here instead" in the popup

Type in the Instagram Username > Click Connect Account

⚠️ Note:

Connecting your account with a username will limit the features available.
We recommend converting your personal account to a Business or Creator account and connecting it through an associated Facebook page, so you can take advantage of more automated features!

2. Instagram supported media types and size limits

	Format	Size
Images	.jpg, .jpeg, .gif	8MB
Videos	.mp4, .mov	100MB
Reels	.mp4, .mov	100MB Between 5s and 90s Aspect ratio of 9:16

📝 Note:

You can view the dimensions and sizes of each piece of media you've uploaded in the Library.
You can crop your images and videos to fit Instagram’s size requirements with our Loomly Studio.

Instagram has placed media restrictions on the types of posts that can be automatically published. Here are the instances when you will need to manually publish your posts, stories, and Reels using our reminders feature:

You will need to manually publish to Instagram accounts that have been connected through a username.
Any story-type post for a Creator account.
You will need to use reminders to publish your images and videos that don't meet Instagram's requirements for the feed and story posts that can be automatically published.

💡Tip: You will see Publish Manually default selected in grey. You can see why the post will be published manually if you hover over the info icon.

You can also check which specific media attachment(s) prevents automatic publishing:

Image requirements for automatic publishing

Format: JPEG, PNG, GIF
File size: 8 MB maximum.
Aspect ratio: Must be within a 4:5 to 1.91:1 range
Minimum width: 320 (will be scaled up to the minimum if necessary)
Maximum width: 1440 (will be scaled down to the maximum if necessary)
Height: Varies, depending on width and aspect ratio
Color Space: sRGB. Images using other color spaces will have their color spaces converted to sRGB.

Reels requirements for automatic publishing

Container: MOV or MP4 (MPEG-4 Part 14), no edit lists, moov atom at the front of the file.
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.
Frame rate: 23-60 FPS.
Picture size:
- Maximum columns (horizontal pixels): 1920
- Videos
  - Minimum aspect ratio [cols / rows]: 4 / 5
  - Maximum aspect ratio [cols / rows]: 16 / 9
- Reels
  - Required aspect ratio is between 0.01:1 and 10:1
  - We recommend 9:16 to avoid cropping or blank spaces.
Video bitrate: VBR, 5Mbps maximum
Audio bitrate: 128kbps
Duration:
- Videos: 60 seconds maximum, 3 seconds minimum
- Reels: 15 mins maximum, 3 seconds minimum
File size: 100MB maximum

3. Instagram features

Feature	Instagram Business Account	Instagram Creator Account	Instagram Personal Account
Publishing
Native scheduling	✅	✅	Publishing with reminders
Image, Stories, Reels, Carousels (up to 10)	✅	✅	Publishing with reminders
@mention (in publishing)	✅	✅	Publishing with reminders
Location	✅	✅	N/A
Product tags	✅	✅	N/A
User tags	✅	✅	N/A
Collab posts	✅	✅	N/A
Interactions
Direct message	✅	✅	N/A
Comment	✅	✅	N/A
@mention (in comments/interactions)	✅	✅	N/A
Targeting, Ads & Analytics
Analytics	✅	✅	N/A
Post sponsoring	✅	✅	N/A

A. Instagram post types

You can schedule and auto-post the following to Instagram:

Posts to the Feed
- Single image or video posts
- Carousel posts with multiple photos and/or videos: please note that you can add additional videos to your Instagram post in the Fine-Tune Content step
- Reels: single-video

Instagram stories
- Single image or video

You can also manually publish with the help of our reminders in case you want more native customization options like adding stickers to Instagram stories.

B. Instagram publishing features

Here are other features we have available for Instagram:

Tag & @mention users
Tag Products
Invite Collaborators to boost engagement and create Instagram Collab posts from Loomly
Click on the gear icon to upload a custom cover image from your device or select a frame from the video timeline for Reels. You will need to select a video frame to act as a cover image for any carousel posts.
Schedule a first comment along with your Instagram post
Tag a location: Start typing in a location into the Location field, and Loomly will populate results that you can choose from

📝 Note:

With Instagram direct publishing, restrictions are put into place by Instagram when you list a location tag. It is only possible to include the location that is associated with a Facebook Page. It can be your Page or any other Facebook Page that has a location.
You can include a maximum of 30 hashtags in both the caption and first comment field combined.

C. Instagram interactions

From our Interactions Management area, you can respond to comments and mentions for Business and Creator accounts. You are also able to respond to direct messages for Business accounts and Creator accounts with less than 500k followers.

This feature is available from the toolbar of each calendar:

D. Instagram analytics

The Analytics dashboard offers insight into your posts' performance. To access Analytics, click on the calendar and go to the Analytics icon:

Loomly Analytics will be your best ally in this quest, empowering you to:

Get a report of Loom.ly URL click counts, sources, & locations.
Dive into account-level statistics.
Get into details with Post Metrics, which includes all the analytics you need to evaluate your posts.
Filter and compare performance by date ranges to evaluate growth and get a better understanding of your success.
Last but not least, export all your analytics as a PDF or CSV file and share them offline with your team!

Here are the metrics available for your Instagram pages:

Account level statistics

New followers: The number of new people who have followed your account. Note: this metric only takes into account people who started following you and does not take into account people who stopped following you.
Total followers: The total number of people who follow your account. The metric, as well as the comparison metrics, includes both people who started following you (New Followers) and people who stopped following you (Unfollows).
Impressions: The number of times your content has been displayed on a screen.
Reach: The total number of unique users who have seen your content.
Please note that the value reported for reach at the account level is the total daily reach values across all accounts. Due to the fact that Instagram reports them with uniqueness across longer time frames, it may not be consistent when comparing between time frames longer than one day.
Engagements: The total number of unique Instagram accounts that liked, commented on, or saved a post.
Engagement rate: The number of people a post reached and then liked, shared, commented, or saved a post.

📝 Note:

Instagram Insights reports may slightly differ as they allow reports to be pulled by last day, last 7 days, or last 28 days.
Videos over 60 seconds (previously called IGTV) are supported.

Story analytics

Exits: The number of times someone exited a story.
Impressions: The number of times a story was displayed.
Reach: The number of unique accounts that viewed the story.
Replies: The total number of replies to a story.
Please note that story replies received and left within Japan and Europe will result in a 0 value due to privacy rules as mentioned here.

Taps forward: The total number of taps to see the next story.
Taps back: The total number of taps to see the previous story.

📝 Note:

Story analytics are available for Business and Creator accounts that are connected through a Facebook page.
We recommend waiting until the next day to see stories published from the day prior.
There must be at least 5 unique viewers for us to display metrics for stories.
Shared stories will not be displayed due to API limitations.
Story image previews will expire after a few days.
Story metrics cannot be backfilled.

E. Grid Preview

Preview how your drafted content will look in your Instagram grid.

Instagram Grid Preview is available in Post View or Post Builder for each calendar with a linked Instagram Business or Creator account. Please ensure these accounts are connected through a Facebook page.

You can preview any drafted or scheduled content for Instagram in both the Posts and Reels Grids. To view your Reels Grid, select Grid Preview, then switch to Reels at the top of the Post Preview.

By default, the post you preview will appear at the top left of your grid as the last published post on your Instagram account.

By checking the Show future Loomly posts option, you can also preview how your grid will look with any upcoming posts scheduled with Loomly:

F. Post Sponsoring

You can boost posts with Instagram ads directly from Loomly! Learn more about it here.