Routing: Instagram
See Roles and permissions for who has access to this connection.
Instagram has no login of its own — linking runs entirely through
Facebook. Newsroom doesn’t even store
a separate Instagram token: it only keeps a reference to your existing
Facebook connection and uses the instagram_basic permission already
granted there.
Roles and permissions
This page — like the rest of Settings > Routing, for all platforms — is only reachable for users with the Settings role (the same role used for most other Settings pages, e.g. AI settings and Plan/usage), not a separate Instagram-specific role. Without this role, opening the entire Routing page already shows an error instead of an overview of connected platforms.
Requirements and linking
To link Instagram, your account must be an Instagram Business account linked to a Facebook page — that’s a requirement from Instagram itself, not Newsroom, since Business accounts are managed through Facebook.
- Link Facebook first (see Routing: Facebook) if you haven’t already.
- Click Instagram in Settings > Routing. Newsroom fetches the Instagram accounts linked to your Facebook page(s).
- Pick the desired account and click Link Page.
If Newsroom shows no accounts to pick from, there’s no Instagram account linked to the Facebook page(s) you have access to — that has to be set up within Facebook/Instagram itself first.
Four content types when publishing
Instagram publishes independently of website publication: as soon as the post is published, the content goes to Instagram at the same time, even without a linked WordPress/Joomla site (see also Publishing to your channels). For each post you choose one of four content types, each with its own publishing step:
- Grid photo — a single image. By default the post’s first image; you can also upload a separate photo just for Instagram (see below).
- Grid video — a single video.
- Reel — video published as a Reel. Must be portrait (vertical) — Newsroom rejects a landscape video before it even uploads, with the message “Video moet verticaal (portrait) zijn.” (Video must be portrait).
- Album — multiple images/videos as a carousel.
For each type, Newsroom first prepares the content on Instagram’s side (for albums, this happens per image/video first, then once more for the whole album), waits until that preparation is done, and only then publishes. This can take anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes, especially for video/Reel.
You need to have saved a platform-specific configuration for the post before publishing (the right content type chosen, with its fields filled in) — just turning on the toggle isn’t enough.
Grid photo needs an image on the post, or an Instagram photo you uploaded yourself.
Grid photo: own photo and crop
When you choose Grid photo, Instagram uses the post’s photo by default. If Instagram should get a different photo than the website, for example one that fits the feed better, upload it in the Own photo for Instagram block, above the crop:
- JPG, PNG and WebP are accepted, at least 320 pixels wide.
- The own photo only applies to Instagram; the post’s photo on the website doesn’t change.
- Back to the post’s photo switches Instagram back to the regular post photo.
Switching between your own photo and the post photo is saved immediately. The crop then starts over, centred on the new photo.
Below that, under Crop, you choose the aspect ratio: 1:1 (square), 4:5 (portrait), 1.91:1 (landscape) or 9:16 (vertical), and drag the frame to the part of the photo you want to show. If you saved a crop before, Newsroom restores it with the closest matching ratio. Each ratio has a minimum resolution (320 × 320 for 1:1, 320 × 400 for 4:5, 320 × 167 for 1.91:1 and 320 × 568 for 9:16); if the photo is too small, you get a message about it.
Caption, hashtags, and album size
- Caption: the counter adds up the message and the hashtags together and shows ”…/2200 characters” — the same combined limit Instagram enforces at publish time. Newsroom shows a yellow warning from 2000 characters and a red one from 2200. If you try to save a combination over 2200 characters, Newsroom now rejects it right away with a clear error message, instead of appearing to save successfully and only failing later at publish time.
- Hashtags: capped at 5 per post.
- Album: Newsroom sends at most 20 images/videos to Instagram.
Expired connection
Since Instagram has no token of its own, the connection depends entirely on the underlying Facebook connection. If that expires or breaks (see Routing: Facebook), Instagram publishing stops along with it — with no separate error shown on the Instagram connection itself.
Removing the connection
Delete Platform removes only the Instagram connection; your Facebook connection stays intact.