How to Manage Multiple Instagram Accounts
Instagram this week introduced a new feature that allows you to post an image to multiple accounts, or even post an image to multiple accounts at the same time. While this sounds like a niche feature created to help power users, there are many people manipulating multiple Instagram feeds: users who run public and private channels,side accounts for their pets, and other side photography projects . And yes, in an age of influential culture, the number of people using Instagram for both business and pleasure is only growing.
The broader question of what it takes to create enough great posts to fill two accounts aside, managing multiple Instagram accounts isn’t nearly as difficult as it sounds. Here’s what you need to know:
Starting out
Signing up and logging into multiple Instagram accounts in one app is very easy. Just open the side menu by clicking the three lines in the upper right corner of the screen, clicking the Settings button at the bottom of the menu, then scroll down and click Add Account. You will be prompted to display a login screen where you can either log into a second account or click the Register button to create a new one. Once you’re signed in, the app stays connected to all the accounts you’re signed in to.
Once you have multiple accounts set up on your phone, you can switch between them by going to your profile and tapping the text version of your descriptor at the top of the screen. (if you are logged into multiple accounts, there will be a small carrot next to it, facing down).
Fortunately, thanks to the new cross-post feature in iOS, you don’t have to change accounts every time you want to create a new post. When you add a photo and you’re in the header menu, you’ll find a new section just below the add location line called “post to other accounts” with a list of connected accounts.
The account you’re signed in to automatically switches to publishing, but if you want to post to a different account, just turn it off. You can also enable everything to post the photo to all of your accounts, although this is kind of a social media oversight in most cases, unless your accounts have completely different audiences.
In terms of technical management of your accounts, that’s it. Depending on what you plan to use your accounts for, you can customize settings for each individual account, such as making it private, turning off comments and preferences for push notifications. All of these features work the same no matter how many accounts you have. Just make sure you have configured the correct profile before changing your settings.
Become a pro with a social media manager
However, unless you are a very active daily user, the real problem with maintaining multiple accounts is keeping them all active and fresh. As with most projects where you split your focus, it is very easy to get bogged down in maintaining one to the point that you leave the other (s) dormant. (If you don’t believe me, ask any professional writer about their personal blog. Except me! I … don’t want to talk about it).
Instagram doesn’t offer many common sense features that power users might need, such as the ability to schedule posts ahead of time and post to Instagram from a laptop or desktop. If you’re ready to take the plunge, there are third-party social media management platforms that offer these tools and give you more control.
I call this the plunge because there is one catch you should be aware of before signing up: third-party apps can only post directly to Instagram business accounts, so many of these tools require you to swap in order to get the most out of them. recoil. Plus, while they all have free trials, very few are worth your time and won’t let you manage multiple accounts until you pay for a subscription.
Switching your personal account to a business account is quick and painless – go to settings, then account and click “Switch to business account”, but for this you need to connect your Instagram to the Facebook business page and publicly share at least one way … direct communication; email address, telephone number, or physical business address. You also lose the ability to make your account private (although you can get it back by going back to your “private” account if you need a break). None of this is a big deal for people using Instagram to promote real business, but for the average person, the move actually means trading a little privacy for better features. It is important to be aware of this.
To be completely transparent, the guidelines provided here are for people who want to manage multiple accounts for fun. There are definitely more marketing-focused tools out there for professional account managers and influencers, but they are often expensive and have features that make them a little confusing, so we stick to apps that help keep us entertained.
Buffer ( iOS , Android )
Buffer allows you to schedule posts in your feed in advance and allows you to post from any device with an Internet connection. It also allows you to manage multiple social media accounts in one place, which can definitely save time if you plan on posting multiple versions of the same link or photo. There is a trial version that lets you sync three social media accounts and schedule 10 posts per account per month. This will probably not be enough to satisfy most users, so there is a paid version for $ 15 a month that increases the limit to eight social profiles and 100 posts per account.
Buffer is well suited if this is your first time trying to use a social media manager for personal use. Navigation is easy to use and has one of the few free trials that will let you manage multiple accounts. While it is annoying (and archaic) that the paid tier limits the number of posts you can schedule, it does go a long way in simplifying your social media workflow.
Storrito
Most of the social media managers I’ve seen on this list and beyond help you customize your feed, but very few provide you with similar support for Instagram Stories. Therefore, no matter which manager you use, you should complement it with Storrito, a powerful Instagram scheduler designed for stories only. Storrito not only allows you to upload images and post them to Instagram accounts, but also edit, add filters, geotags – as much as nine yards away. Yes, and you can add videos as well, which also seems quite rare among third-party tools.
Storrito has a free trial that lets you post 10 images or videos per month to any number of accounts. Again, if you really want to use the service, you will have to pay for it. Premium pricing ranges from $ 5 per month for 30 posts to $ 60 for 500 posts.
Plann ( iOS , Android )
Plann, an Instagram-only management app, is also a good choice if you want the platform to work alongside Instagram. It’s stylish, provides planning and creative tools, and (unlike Buffer) doesn’t limit the number of posts you can make. It’s also one of the few tools I’ve found that supports both Instagram feed and Instagram stories, making it one of the few tools that comes close to offering a fully featured add-on to the platform.
While the free version doesn’t let you manage multiple accounts, Plann seems to be relatively affordable. Connecting 2-3 accounts costs $ 8 per month or $ 12 per month for unlimited.
However, it has several disadvantages. For better or worse, Plann doesn’t post directly to Instagram, which means you can use all of its features with a personal account, but at the expense of one of its main features, the ability to save time by automating your plan on social media. It’s also limited to your phone. If Instagram is your main social platform, this may not seem like a hindrance, but as someone whose world revolves around a laptop, the web app is a must-have feature for me. However, Plann has a web application in development, so this may not be a problem for a long time.