Adding Instagram Connections

How to collect content from Instagram

Sarah Nünlist avatar
Written by Sarah Nünlist
Updated over a week ago

Adding a connection is the first step to getting your Display up and running.  This article shows you how to add and manage Instagram Connections. To add Instagram Connections, you need to own an Instagram Business Account that is connected to a Facebook Business Page.

Supported Instagram Connections

How to add Instagram Connections to contentfry

When setting up an Instagram Connection you will be asked to log in to your Instagram Business Account through Facebook. If you don't have an Instagram Business Account yet, click here to get started. 

Instagram requires that you connect your Instagram Business account to a Facebook Business Page. If you haven't connected your Instagram Business Account to a Facebook page yet, click here to get started.

Please note: An Instagram Business Account can only be connected to a single Facebook Page.

  1. You do have an Instagram Business Account? Then click on the «Instagram Business» button in the Connections panel.

2. Connect to Instagram Business (through your Facebook login) so we can retrieve the Instagram accounts that you manage.

3. After connecting through your Facebook login, you will see a drop-down showing the Instagram accounts you can connect to.

4. You can now select the desired Connection type from the top tabs and start to set up the first Connection. 

Please click on the Connection type you want to connect to jump directly to the respective section in this article.

How to add an Instagram Hashtag

The Connection Hashtag will collect content posted with a certain Hashtag. 

  1. To add an Instagram Hashtag as a source of content, click on «Hashtag» in the top tabs of the dialog box. 

  2. Select the Instagram Business Account you want to use in the drop-down on the left-hand side. Then enter the hashtag in the designated field on the right-hand side.

  3. Decide if you want to show Recent Media or Top Media. If you want to collect all the content that contains your hashtag, select Recent Media. If you use a very popular hashtag that brings a lot of unwanted content, you may want to choose Top Media. In this case, contentfry will only collect the content that also appears on Instagram in Top Media.

  4. Check your moderation settings and then click on the «create» button.

How to add your own Profile (Account)

The Connection Owned Account will collect content posted by your own Instagram Account. 

  1. Click on «Owned Account» in the top tabs of the dialog box.

  2. The drop-down shows you all the Accounts you manage. Select the one you want to connect to.

  3. Check your moderation settings and then click on the «create» button. 

How to add Tagged Photos (and Videos)

The Connection Tagged Photos will collect content in which your Instagram Business Account was tagged

  1. To set up the Tagged Photos (and Videos) Connection click on «Tagged Photos» in the top tabs of the dialog box.

  2. Then select the Instagram Business Account you want the tagged content from. 

  3. Check your moderation settings and then click on the «create» button.  

Posts that are collected with the Tagged Photos Connection will show username and profile pictures on your display (unlike the Hashtag Connection).

How to add a Stories

The Connection Stories will collect content posted by your own Instagram Account.

  1. Click on «Stories» in the top tabs of the dialog box.

  2. The drop-down shows you all the Accounts you manage. Select the one you want to connect to.

  3. Check your moderation settings and then click on the «create» button.

  4. For additional information about Stories, please view the important information about Stories at the end of this article.


How to add a public Profile (Account)

The Connection Public Content will collect content posted by an Instagram Business Account you do not own.

  1. Click on «Public Content» in the top tabs of the dialog box.

  2. Select the Account you want to use in the drop-down on the left-hand side. Then enter the username of the Instagram Business Account in the designated field on the right-hand side.

  3. Check your moderation settings and then click on the «create» button. 


Important Info

Instagram Hashtags

1. As a result of increased data protection requirements (eg GDPR) Instagram does not provide the profile picture and the username for Hashtag Connections anymore. 

Contents that have been collected based on an Instagram Hashtag will only show the media (picture or video), the text field, and the date.

2. Instagram only allows a maximum of 30 hashtags to be queried per week per Business account. You can only add a maximum of 30 unique hashtags on behalf of any Instagram Business account within a rolling 7-day period.

The 30 hashtag searches are per Business Account, not per application using that Account. In practice, connecting a hashtag on a service like Hootsuite will count against the 30 even on contentfry. 

3. You can't connect a hashtag to contentfry that has not been used on Instagram before. Simply publish a dummy post on Instagram before creating a Connection for a brand-new hashtag,

4. When you add a new Instagram hashtag Connection to your social wall, contentfry will only be able to fetch the public Instagram posts published with this hashtag in the past 24 hours. 

Instagram Stories

  • When uploading to Stories, Instagram splits long videos into sequences of 14 seconds. Contentfry receives the different sequences from Instagram as individual pieces of content, rather than the entire video as a single, coherent piece of content.

  • Stickers that have been added to your stories are not clickable or interactive on contentfry. For example:

    • Link-, mention- or location-Stickers are not clickable

    • Countdown-Sticker: the countdown sticker will show the time it showed when it was aggregated by contentfry

    • Questions-, Quiz-, Poll-Stickers: Will show the questions, not the result.

  • If your display settings for "click action" is set to "open links" and one of your Story-contents is older than 24 hours, the user will be linked to your current story. This is due to the fact, that the relevant story content is not available on Instagram anymore. We recommend using a display in which the click action is set to "show in detail modal".

  • Instagram does not deliver a Profile Image for the Stories Connection. You can manually set your Profile Image for this Connection. Here's how you do it.

What's next

  • Do you have an issue with an existing Instagram Connection? Maybe you can find the solution here

  • You might want to edit or delete your Instagram Connections. Learn how to Manage your Connections.

Did this answer your question?