How to Sync Instagram and Facebook

Connecting your Instagram and Facebook accounts streamlines your workflow, helps maintain brand consistency, and expands your reach with just a few taps. Whether you want to automatically share posts, manage messages in one place, or simply link your profiles, this guide will walk you through exactly how to sync them. We’ll cover everything from the basic connection to customizing your sharing settings and troubleshooting common hiccups.

Why You Should Sync Instagram and Facebook in the First Place

Before getting into the steps, it's worth understanding the benefits. Connecting these two platforms isn't just a gimmick, it’s a smart move for creators, brands, and anyone looking to be more efficient with their social media.

• Save a Ton of Time: This is the biggest one. Instead of creating and uploading the same piece of content twice, you can post it once on Instagram and have it appear on Facebook automatically. This is especially useful for Stories and Reels, which can be time-consuming to create.
• Maintain Brand Consistency: A unified presence makes your brand look more professional and cohesive. By syncing your content and even your profile information (like your profile picture), you ensure that followers on both platforms get a consistent experience.
• Expand Your Audience Reach: You likely have followers on one platform who don't follow you on the other. Syncing allows you to effortlessly share your content with both audiences, increasing the overall visibility of every single post.
• Centralize Your Communication: For business or creator accounts, you can manage your Instagram DMs and Facebook Page messages from a single inbox in Meta Business Suite. No more jumping between apps to answer questions or reply to comments. This alone can be a massive productivity boost.
• Simplify Ad Campaigns: When your accounts are linked, running ads across both platforms becomes much easier. You can create campaigns in Ads Manager that target audiences on both Instagram and Facebook, optimizing your budget and performance from one dashboard.

How to Connect Your Instagram and Facebook Accounts

The main hub for managing this connection is the Meta Accounts Center. It's built right into your Instagram and Facebook apps, making the process straightforward.

Here’s the step-by-step guide to getting them linked up from your Instagram app.

1. Go to Your Instagram Profile and Open Settings

Open the Instagram app on your phone and tap on your profile picture in the bottom-right corner to go to your profile. From there, tap the hamburger menu (the three horizontal lines) in the top-right corner to open the main menu.

2. Navigate to the Meta Accounts Center

In the menu that appears, tap on Settings and privacy. On the next screen, you’ll see the Meta Accounts Center at the very top. Tap on it. This is the central location where you will manage all your connected accounts and cross-app experiences.

3. Add Your Facebook Account

Once you're in the Accounts Center, you'll see a section for Profiles. To add a new account, tap on Add accounts. Instagram will automatically look for any Facebook accounts logged in on your device. If it finds the correct one, you can simply tap to confirm and link them.

If it doesn't find the account or you want to connect a different one, you'll be prompted to log in to your Facebook account to establish the connection.

After you’ve added the account, your Instagram and Facebook profiles will be linked. Now, you can start customizing what content gets shared between them.

Customizing Your Sharing Settings

Just because your accounts are connected doesn't mean everything has to be shared automatically. You have complete control over what content syncs across platforms. This is great because you might want your Instagram Stories to post to Facebook, but prefer to create separate, tailored posts for your Facebook Feed.

Here’s how to fine-tune your settings.

1. Enter the Accounts Center Again

Follow the same steps as before: go to your Instagram profile, tap the hamburger menu, tap Settings and privacy, and select Accounts Center.

2. Find "Sharing Across Profiles"

In the Accounts Center, look for the Connected experiences section and tap on Sharing across profiles. This is where you’ll manage all your content syncing options.

3. Select Your Instagram Account

You'll see a list of the profiles you have connected. Tap on your Instagram account to manage its specific sharing settings - what content flows from Instagram to other platforms.

4. Choose What to Automatically Share

This is the fun part. You now have separate toggles for each type of content. Under the "Automatically share" section, you’ll see:

• Your Instagram stories: Turn this on to have every Story you post to Instagram automatically appear on Facebook Stories as well.
• Your Instagram posts: When this is enabled, every new photo or video you post to your Instagram Feed will be simultaneously published to your Facebook Feed.
• Your Instagram Reels: Enable this to automatically share your Reels to Facebook. Meta often recommends this to maximize your reach, but you can turn it off if you prefer to upload Reels to Facebook manually.

You can turn any of these options on or off at any time. This gives you the flexibility to adapt your strategy without having to disconnect and reconnect your accounts.

Syncing Profile Information

Beyond sharing content, you can also sync your profile information to keep your branding consistent. This means that if you update your name or profile picture on Instagram, it will automatically update on Facebook too (or vice versa).

How to Set It Up:

1. Navigate back to the main Accounts Center page.
2. Under Account settings, tap on Profiles.
3. You'll see your connected profiles. Tap on the one you want to manage.
4. You might see an option for Sync profile info. If you enable this, your name, username, and profile picture will stay consistent across your linked profiles.

Note: This feature works best if you want a fully unified identity. If you use different profile pictures or names on purpose, it's best to leave this setting turned off.

Troubleshooting Common Syncing Problems

Sometimes things don't go as smoothly as planned. Here are a few common issues and how to fix them.

"My Posts Aren't Sharing to My Facebook Business Page."

This is a very common issue. By default, Instagram may try to sync with your personal Facebook profile, not your Brand Page. Here's how to fix it:

• Go back to Sharing across profiles in the Accounts Center.
• Tap your Instagram profile.
• Under the automatic sharing settings for posts, stories, etc., you should see a "Share to" section.
• Tap on it and make sure your Facebook Business Page is selected, not your personal timeline. If it's not listed, you may need to ensure you're an admin of that Page on Facebook.

"My Instagram Reels Share to Facebook Without the Original Audio."

This usually happens due to music licensing. The song you used on your Instagram Reel might be licensed for use on Instagram, but not on Facebook. When this happens, Facebook will either mute the Reel or, in some cases, replace the audio. To avoid this, try using original audio you’ve recorded yourself or music from Facebook's Sound Collection.

"It Won't Let Me Connect My Accounts."

This can happen for a couple of reasons:

• Permission Issues: From a desktop, go to your Facebook settings under "Business Integrations." Look for Instagram and make sure it has all the necessary permissions. Sometimes, an old permission setting can block the new connection.
• Log Out and Log Back In: The classic "turn it off and on again" approach works wonders. Log out of both the Facebook and Instagram apps on your phone, then log back in and try connecting them again through the Accounts Center.

"I Can't Post Instagram Stories Collaborations to Facebook."

Correct. While you can sync your regular Instagram Stories, a story that uses the collaboration ("Collab") feature (where another account is a co-author) cannot be shared automatically to Facebook. This is a current limitation within the platform.

How to Unlink Your Instagram and Facebook Accounts

If you ever decide you want to manage your accounts separately again, disconnecting them is just as easy as connecting them.

1. Go to the Meta Accounts Center (Profile > Settings and privacy > Accounts Center).
2. Scroll down to the bottom and tap on Accounts.
3. You will see a list of all connected accounts. Beside the Facebook (or Instagram) account you wish to disconnect, tap the Remove button.
4. A confirmation message will appear warning you that this will disable cross-posting and other connected experiences. Confirm that you want to remove it, and the accounts will be unlinked.

Final Thoughts

Syncing your Instagram and Facebook profiles is a powerful way to make your social media management more efficient and your brand presence more cohesive. By following these steps, you can set up a seamless connection and customize it to fit your exact content strategy, saving you valuable time to focus on creating great content.

Once you’ve got your accounts connected, the next step is often streamlining your entire workflow. That’s something we focused on heavily. We built Postbase to simplify exactly these kinds of tasks, letting you visually plan your posts for all platforms, schedule content reliably (especially short-form video), and manage all your DMs and comments in one inbox. It's designed to feel less like a chore and more like a dependable command center for your brand's presence across all your social channels.