How to Have Facebook Posts Also Post to Instagram

Posting your awesome content from Facebook directly to Instagram is a massive time-saver for any busy marketer or business owner. Instead of uploading the same thing twice, you can streamline your workflow and keep your content consistent across both platforms. This guide will walk you through exactly how to set up and use this feature, plus share some best practices to make sure your content hits the mark with both audiences.

Why Automatically Post from Facebook to Instagram? (The Good & Bad)

Connecting your accounts is about more than just convenience. It’s a strategic move that can help unify your brand presence. But it's not a silver bullet, and you need to know what you’re getting into.

The Benefits of Cross-Posting

• Epic Time Savings: This is the big one. Creating and publishing content is time-consuming. Doing it for multiple platforms creates even more work. A single workflow lets you schedule content for both Facebook and Instagram simultaneously, giving you back precious time to focus on other parts of your business.
• Consistent Brand Messaging: When you’re running a specific campaign or want to maintain a consistent tone of voice, posting the same core information across platforms reinforces your brand identity. It ensures everyone, regardless of where they follow you, gets the same key messages.
• Easier Content Calendar Management: It's much easier to plan and visualize your content schedule when you aren’t juggling two separate workflows. You can see "this post goes live on Tuesday on both platforms" rather than trying to coordinate different schedules.

The Drawbacks You Need to Watch Out For

• Different Platform Vibes: Facebook users and Instagram users expect different things. An Instagram caption is often more personal, story-driven, or emoji-heavy. A Facebook post might include links or more formal text. A one-size-fits-all approach can sometimes feel out of place on one of the platforms.
• Formatting Issues: The standard 1:1 square or 4:5 vertical photo on Instagram may look perfect, but appear differently on Facebook. More importantly, things like clickable links don't work in Instagram captions. An update saying "Click the link in our bio!" doesn't make sense if it was originally a Facebook post with a direct link.
• Distinctive Hashtag Cultures: On Instagram, it’s common to use 15, 20, or even 30 hashtags to maximize reach. On Facebook, using more than a few hashtags can look spammy and even hurt your engagement.

Don't worry, we'll cover how to navigate these challenges so you get all the benefits without the drawbacks.

Step-by-Step Guide: Connecting Your Facebook and Instagram Accounts

To get started, you need to officially link your Instagram Professional account to your Facebook Business Page. You can't do this with a personal Facebook profile, and your Instagram account must be set to either a Business or Creator account.

Step 1: Get Your Accounts Ready

1. Verify Your Facebook Page: Make sure you’re an admin of the Facebook Business Page you want to connect to. This won't work with personal profiles or pages you don't manage.
2. Switch to an Instagram Professional Account: If your Instagram is still a "Personal" account, you'll need to switch. It's free and quick.
   • Open the Instagram app and go to your profile.
   • Tap the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) in the top right.
   • Go to Settings and privacy > Account type and tools.
   • Tap on Switch to professional account and follow the on-screen prompts. Choose the category that best fits your brand.

Step 2: Connecting the Accounts

The easiest and most official way to do this is through Meta Business Suite, Meta's central hub for managing your professional presence on Facebook and Instagram.

On Desktop:

1. Go to Meta Business Suite and select the Business Account associated with your Facebook Page.
2. In the left-hand navigation menu, click the All tools icon (looks like a grid).
3. Under "Manage," click on Page settings.
4. In the new left-hand menu, click Linked accounts.
5. Select Instagram, then click Connect account.
6. Confirm your settings a couple of times, and then a login window for Instagram will pop up. Enter your Instagram credentials to authorize the connection. That's it!

Once connected, that same screen will show you the linked account information.

On the Meta Business Suite Mobile App:

1. Open the Meta Business Suite app.
2. Tap the menu icon (your profile picture or three lines) in the bottom right corner.
3. Tap the Settings gear icon at the top.
4. Go to Business settings.
5. Tap Instagram connection.
6. Tap the Connect button and follow the prompts to log in to your Instagram account.

How to Post to Instagram From Facebook in Real-Time

Once your accounts are linked, actually pushing content from Facebook to Instagram is handled within the Meta Business Suite composer. It's built to let you customize content for each platform during the creation process, which is the perfect way to sidestep the potential pitfalls of cross-posting.

Using the Meta Business Suite Content Composer

This composer lets you create one post but fine-tune the details for each platform before publishing.

1. From the Meta Business Suite homepage, click the blue Create post button.
2. At the very top, under the "Post to" section, you'll see your Facebook Page and Instagram Account icons. Make sure both are checked.
3. Upload Your Media: Click "Add photo" or "Add video" to upload your visual content. Friendly tip: Stick with a square (1:1) or vertical (4:5) aspect ratio, as this works best on both feeds.
4. Customize Your Text: You’ll see tabs for "Facebook" and "Instagram." This is the most important step! After writing your primary caption, click the Instagram tab and you'll see an option to "Edit Instagram post text." This is where you make your changes!
   • Adjust the tone for the Instagram audience.
   • Swap out your link text (e.g., from "Click the link below!" to "Check the link in our bio!").
   • Add your big block of Instagram-specific hashtags here.
5. Check the Previews: On the right side of the screen, you can toggle between a preview of your Facebook Feed and Instagram Feed. Use this to catch any weird formatting or visual issues before you post.
6. Publish or Schedule: You can either publish it immediately by clicking the "Publish" button or schedule it for a later date and time by clicking the dropdown arrow next to it.

Best Practices for Smart and Effective Cross-Posting

Just because you can push the exact same post to both places doesn't mean you should. Smart cross-posting involves a little customization to respect each platform's culture.

Tweak Per Platform

Always use the customization feature in the composer. Treat your core image or video as the central asset and then write two separate (even if slightly different) captions. Small changes in tone, calls-to-action, and emojis can make a huge difference in how authentically your content is received on each platform.

Create Video-First Content for Both Platforms

Vertical video reels perform extremely well on both Instagram and Facebook. If your goal is maximum reach, creating a short, engaging reel in a 9:16 format is content that will feel native to both platforms without much editing. Uploading it once via Business Suite saves even more time on a format built for success.

Rethink Your Hashtag Strategy

Again, this is worth repeating. Don't blast your 30 Instagram hashtags onto your Facebook post. Use the customization option to write two different sets of hashtags.

• For Instagram: Use a mix of broad, niche, community, and branded hashtags. Feel free to use 15-30 of them.
• For Facebook: Stick to 1-3 highly relevant hashtags. Think of them more as organizing categories than a discovery tool.

Don’t Set it and Forget It

Once your post is live, your job isn't done. The conversation that happens in the comments is unique to each platform. Be sure to check your comments and DMs on both Facebook and Instagram to engage with your audience. Automation should save you time on publishing, not eliminate your community interaction.

Final Thoughts

Setting up your Facebook to automatically post to Instagram through Meta Business Suite is a powerful strategy for saving time and creating a cohesive brand presence. By following the guide to connect your accounts and remembering to customize your content for each audience, you can get the best of both worlds: efficiency and effective engagement.

Getting the workflow right across multiple platforms, especially when you start adding modern formats like Reels and TikToks into your strategy, can feel a bit clunky inside native tools. For our own marketing, we use Postbase because it was designed from day one for how social media works today. It lets us plan our content on a visual calendar, customize captions and tags for each platform in one intuitive view, and schedule reliably without the glitches you find elsewhere. It helps us spend less time fighting with our tools and more time creating great content.