Sometimes you will need to automatically post from WordPress to Instagram. There are lots of people who post their Instagram pictures on WordPress. And there are a lot of plugins that let you incorporate Instagram feed into blog. But what if you want to go the other way?
Finding a plugin that will make possible to without issues publish your new post automatically to Instagram from your website is not easy to find.
When I started searching tool or plugin which will provide that, I was unpleasantly surprised finding that there are not many available tools to make that possible.
So I have a WordPress website in a particular niche. I have an Instagram account for that site. Lazy as I am, I don’t want to manually repost and publish a post to Instagram every time I publish new content or want to republish existing.
Naturally, I started searching for terms like WordPress auto post to Instagram, how to share WordPress posts on Instagram, etc. You get the point.
The first thing I did was to check if there is a recipe on IFTTT for my purpose. There were many Instagram to WordPress recipes, but no WordPress to Instagram at the time I checked.
Then I found out that official Instagram API is not accepting images from anything other than mobile devices. I understand that move from Instagram. They don’t want spammers publishing via bots.
Which means no automatic processes. Just good old manual posting. Luckily I managed to found plugins which promised auto post WordPress to Instagram feature. Those were Blog2Social and Social Network Auto Poster (SNAP).
I am already using the free version of this plugin, so didn’t know that in the PRO version, you have the option to post WordPress images to Instagram automatically when a new post is published.
In this case, the post featured image would be shared along with a few sentences of description and even hashtags. That was enough for me to buy the PRO version, which comes with tons of features and costs only $49.
I also found another plugin in Codecanyon repository. This plugin is called Instagram Auto Poster (it seems it is called different now). This plugin is relatively new and costs $19. Of course, it doesn’t have many features like SNAP does as it is oriented, especially to post WordPress images to Instagram.
Taking into consideration that social media plays a critical role in promoting content and engaging readers, it is essential to have your social media accounts set up. Preferably on autopilot. It makes it easier to reach out to new readers while allowing for greater engagement via comments and discussions.
Manually sharing every post on all the different social media networks can get tiresome. If you don’t wish to share it manually every time, you can use one of many plugins or tools available. Your site or blog is already posting your content to Facebook and Twitter. So why not also on Instagram?
NOTE: If you are interested in how to manually or automatically share your existing or new pubslished posts, pages, products, custom post types, etc. to your Facebook profile, pages or groups, check my tutorial where I also use Blog2Social plugin and SNAP.
Table of Contents
How To Post From WordPress To Instagram Automatically?
No obstacle in WordPress can’t be solved using plugins. I will present you several methods on how to automatically share the WordPress blog on Instagram.
Instagram is huge. For brands for businesses and individuals. Just look at the booming interest in influencer marketing. The demographics of all the different social networks can be very different.
So how are you going to share images on Instagram from WordPress with as much hands-free automation as possible?
Below I will show you several methods and plugins which make possible sharing images from your WordPress posts and pages on your Instagram account.
METHOD #1 Social Network Auto Poster (SNAP)
This plugin automatically publishes posts from your blog to your Social Network accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+(Google Plus), Blogger, Tumblr, Flickr, LiveJournal, Flipboard, Instagram, Telegram, etc. The whole process is entirely automated.
Just write the blog post and plugin will do the rest. Once you click “Publish” button, your post or announcement will go to all your configured Social Networks accounts.
What is the difference between “Free” and “Pro” version?” The free plugin is limited to one account per each type of connected networks.
In other words, you can add 1 Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. accounts in the “Free” version. This is enough for about 95% of users.
Pro plugin is not limited in a number of accounts per each type of connected networks. You can add 10 (or 100) Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn accounts in the “Pro” version.
Why are some networks not free? Networks without native API like Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, Flipboard, LinkedIn Company pages and groups, Reddit, etc. don’t allow to make posts.
SNAP author had to create and maintain their own API libraries for such networks, and those libraries are available separately for some fee.
Some networks like Blogger and LinkedIn have free built-in APIs, but those APIs are limited in some ways. In such cases, the plugin can use free API to the full extent of the network imposed limitation.
I will not go in all features that SNAP has to offers as there is a lot of them and because I already wrote a Social Network Auto Poster review.
To be able to publish WordPress posts automatically on Instagram, you will need to buy the PRO version, which costs $49. This is an excellent price, considering the additional features you receive.
Post From WordPress to Instagram Tutorial Using SNAP
The first step is to connect Instagram to your WordPress site.
1. Login to your WordPress Admin Panel, Go to the Settings->Social Networks Auto Poster Options.
2. Click “Add new account” button, select “Instagram” from the list.
3. Fill your Instagram username and password.
You can set the image format to be extended, cropped, or untouched.
Extended – Image is extended by the longer side to make it square. The whole image will be seen in the stream and in the full view. In the stream, the image will appear smaller.
Cropped – Image is cropped to make it square. Some parts of the image will be permanently removed.
Untouched – Image is untouched. Instagram will crop the image for the stream. Could cause “Uploaded image isn’t in an allowed aspect ratio” Error.
To be able to share WordPress post images on Instagram, you will need to buy the PRO version. The paid version costs $49 yearly.
NOTE: My experience in using SNAP to post on Instagram was smooth in the past. But lately, it stopped publishing and working correctly, so I had to log in and share using alternative configuration.
That also worked for some time, but now even with that configuration, it doesn’t work for me. As plugin support doesn’t answer to support tickets I purchased and started using Blog2Social to publish WordPress posts automatically on Instagram.
How to Avoid Instagram’s SPAM Filter Using SNAP?
Instagram has a SPAM filter. Instagram always watches new accounts. The older your account, the less likely it will be considered as “spamming account.” Instagram does not support links at all. You can put the URL to your description, but it won’t be clickable.
Instagram considers all posts with URLs as suspicious, but most of all, Instagram hates shortened URLs. Almost 100% of posts with shortened URLs will be regarded as spam and deleted.
Do not include the most popular tags. Instagram considers all posts with the most popular tags as suspicious. Do not post more than humanly possible. If you post five posts per minute 24/7, your account will be noticed.
If you already got hit by SPAM filter, try to make several posts from your phone without any links or hashtags. Instagram will unmark your account as “Spammer” after some time.
You can check here some other possible issues when using SNAP to post from WordPress to Instagram account.
METHOD #2 Blog2Social
I have recently started using Blog2Social after using SNAP for a long time. I highly recommend using this plugin for sharing your blog posts on social sharing sites.
Blog2Social is a social media auto-publishing, custom sharing, and social media scheduling plugin for WordPress blogs. You can cross-post and cross-promote to all social media networks. I have wrote extensive Blog2Social review so you can check that for more info about this plugin.
Blog2Social automatically turns your blog post into the right format, and you can auto-post at the best times for each network.
Instead of manually sharing your blog content on social media, Blog2Social saves you the time and pain of manually sharing your blog posts and images on social media. For sharing on Instagram, either manually or automatically, you will need to add your Instagram account.
With the Premium version of the plugin, you can change the custom post format photo post or link post for each social media post and channel (profile, page, group).
METHOD #3 Instagram Auto Poster – WordPress to Instagram
The plugin allows you to send posts automatically to your Instagram account. To use the plugin, you have to enter your Instagram username and password. There are not any settings except that. Simple and straightforward.
Choose if you want or not to automatically publish posts from WordPress to your Instagram account. Set message format and you are done. Price for this plugin is $19 and can be purchased on CodeCanyon.
NOTE: It seems this plugin is not available anymore.
METHOD #4 Instamatic Instagram Auto Poster Plugin for WordPress
Instamatic plugin can be used to automatically publish Instagram photos or videos to your Instagram profile every time you publish a new post to your blog.
You can even import posts from Instagram and post to Instagram automatically. To be able to share images from your post on Instagram, you will need to input your username and password.
Then go to “Post to Instagram” settings tab, and you will see options to set for publishing.
Price for the plugin at the time of writing this is $29. I have not personally tested the plugin, so can’t say how well it works in sharing image or video from your published blog posts.
METHOD #5 FS Poster
Many people create posts and products on their WordPress websites, but they also upload them to Instagram. You don’t have to share your posts manually anymore! All of this is taken care of with the help from FS Poster, which will not only auto-post but also schedule them on social networks like Instagram so that they go live at just about any time or day in the future.
FS Poster is a WordPress Social Auto Poster & Scheduler that allows users to automatically post their WordPress blogs, custom posts, videos and even WooCommerce products to the most popular social networks.
The process of adding an account can be done in two ways. The cookie method is recommended, but there’s also the login and password approach which you should choose according to your needs or preferences.
Cookie method:
1. Click to the FS Poster > Accounts > Instagram menu.
2. Select the Cookie method;
3. Click the ADD AN ACCOUNT option.
4. Open an Incognito tab in a browser (Chrome is suggested, and you may open an Incognito tab in Chrome by using Ctrl+Shift+N).
5. Access your Instagram account;
6. In the newly created window, press the F12 key on your computer and select the Application tab.
7. Copy the sessionid cookie value and exit the incognito tab without logging out;
8. Copy and paste the sessionid into the designated box and press the ADD button.
9. Make your account active.
Login and Password method:
1. Navigate to the FS Poster > Accounts > Instagram page.
2. Select the ADD AN ACCOUNT option.
3. Choose the Login and Password method.
4. Enter your Instagram username and password, then click the ADD button.
5. Make your account active.
METHOD #6 WP Post And Widget For Instagram
This is a simple plugin for your site to upload/post your WordPress posts, WooCommerce products, and all other custom post types to Instagram automatically. Your post/product must have a featured image to share on Instagram. Without the featured image, no post/product will be shared.
You can add a custom message and hashtags before publishing post/product. You can also add an Instagram widget for an Instagram feed at sidebars.
The plugin has a free and paid version. In PRO version you also get the option to:
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METHOD #7 Instagram Poster – WordPress to Instagram Post/Story
With Instagram Poster, you can publish your WordPress posts to Instagram feeds/stories with a clickable link. It can also post WooCommerce products and AliPlugin products.
Features:
- Clickable Link – useful in stories (Min. requirement 10k+ followers & business account).
- Image Watermarking – use title & URL watermark on feature image.
- Images support – posting images from WordPress to Instagram.
- Different post types – WooCommerce Product, WordPress Post.
- Bit.ly Support – shorten URL of post or product with bit.ly API Support
- In the caption, you can use Title, Summary, URL, TAGS & Categories as hashtags.
The plugin posts images and stories automatically from WordPress to Instagram according to settings. It supports WooCommerce product, WordPress post.
METHOD #8 Instagram Media Planner
To offer something different, I am including PHP script to the methods. So this is not a WordPress plugin but a PHP script which you install on your server.
Nextpost (now Instagram Media Planner) is an online marketing auto posting web application that allows you to auto post to Instagram, schedule and manage your Instagram accounts.
You don’t even need to log-in and out of various social media platforms as you can conveniently manage multiple Instagram accounts from a single place. Instagram Media Planner allows you to post to your Instagram accounts simultaneously.
As you add content to your Instagram, Nextpost automatically posts the same content to your other accounts. You can import images from your Dropbox and OneDrive accounts.
With built-in PayPal and Skrill integration, this script allows you to accept payments from your users for using your website. To enable PayPal integration, you need PayPal API Client ID and Client Secret.
After setting-up Stripe integration, your users will be available to make a payment with their bank cards without leaving your website.
Blog2Social vs. Social Networks Auto-Poster
Here is comparison between two most popular plugins for automatic sharing of published posts, pages, products, and custom post types with vast number of settings, features, and social networks.
- Name
- Price
- Share to Facebook profile
- Share to Facebook pages
- Share to Facebook groups (public, private, closed)
- Share to Instagram
- Share to Instagram story
- Share to Facebook story
- Share to LinkedIn profile
- Share to LinkedIn Pulse
- Share to LinkedIn company pages
- Share to LinkedIn groups
- Share to ok.ru
- Share to Plurk
- Share to Pinterest
- Share to Twitter
- Share to VK.Com
- Share to Weibo
- Share to XING profile, page and group
- Share to Blogger
- Share to Flipboard
- Share to Google My Business
- Share to Instapaper
- Share to LiveJournal
- Share to Medium profile
- Share to Medium group
- Share to Scoop.It
- Share to SETT
- Share to Tumblr
- Share to WP Based Blog
- Share to Diigo
- Share to Reddit subredits
- Share to MailChimp list
- Share to Line
- Share to Telegram
- Share to Yo
- Share to deviantART
- Share to Flickr
- Share to vBulletin
- Share to YouTube channel
- Share to Bloglovin
- Share to Torial
- Automatic repost of the existing posts
- Autoposting FiltersYou can setup general criteria for what posts should be autoposted
- Integration with URL shortener services
- Auto-Import comments from Social NetworksPlugin will automatically grab the comments posted on Social Networks and insert them as "Comments to your post"
- Auto-HashTags settings
- Open Graph settings
- Auto-Scheduling
- Auto-post imported RSS content
- Content curationShare content from any source on social media
- Best time managerUse pre-defined time settings to share your posts at the best times to post on each network
- Individual schedulingDefine your own time settings for different dates and times to share your posts on each network
- Select network post format
- Put GIFs into your social media posts
- SOCIAL NETWORK AUTO POSTER
- Free and paid version
- BLOG2SOCIAL
- Free and paid version
- Only Bitly
NOTE: Features of free and pro versions were taken into account in comparison table. For information which features are available in free and for which you need to purchase pro version, please check official plugin sites.
Also, info stated in above comparison may be outdated as plugins get updates, new features are added and some are removed, pricing gets changes, etc.
How To Automatically Post From WordPress To Instagram Summary
Instagram is a massive social platform, but it is notoriously tricky to share images on Instagram from WordPress.
Insta’s emphasis is on “on the go” snapping and posting and designed to be mobile-only, and it doesn’t allow access from other apps for posting. It is conspicuously absent from social sharing tools and can be tricky to use from a PC, Mac, or laptop.
If you can post quality images regularly and create a follower base, Instagram can benefit your business. Using the plugins mentioned above, you can use the platform to help your online business and get some extra traffic to your site.
Stop manually posting every time you want to publish a new post from WordPress to Instagram. Let the plugin do the work so you can focus on more important things like writing content.
If you need to showcase your existing images from Instagram on your WordPress website, then I recommend InstaShow. Now over to you. Let me know in comments below what you think and if you know any other way or tool to post automatically from WordPress to Instagram.
DISCLOSURE: Posts may contain affiliate links. If you buy something through one of those links, I might get a small commission, without any extra cost to you. Read more about it here.
I definitely enjoying every little bit of it. It is a great website and nice share. I want to thank you. Good job! You guys do a great blog, and have some great contents. Keep up the good work.
Hello.
Blog2Social is a paid version for Instagram repost – please add this to your post
Thanks for this article. Does Snap Api work well for publishing to instagram as of November 2020, will like to know if the problems you mentioned earlier are gone now.
I don’t use SNAP anymore as when I last tested it was not working well with Instagram and support for premium customers is ono-existent. I use Blog2Social.
Ack. You might let that be known at the beginning of the post! I was so excited that you wrote this post and went to purchase it, only to find it didn’t work.
When I wrote post I was using SNAP and it was working fine. Unfortunately, it is not the case anymore. Blog2Social works fine for me.
Hello, thank you for the great article. you mentioned that SNAP author created their own API library for Instagram. I’m interested in learning how can I create my own API library for Instagram. any tutorials you direct me to would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Hi Mohammed,
Unfortunately, this is not something I know anything about.
Is there any multi user plugin that works fine for this?
Instagram just released an update where they are stopping posting from 3rd party applications.
Apparently some new ML algorithm which detects it.
The SNAP plugin anyway had many issues in posting via their API to Instagram. Is there any decent plugin that posts to insta and other social media.
As I understand they are not stopping posting from 3rd party applications but trying to stop fake likes and comments from 3rd party applications.
Has anyone been able to use SNAP to post a video to Instagram or just photos at this point?
Both should work. If any issues you better contact support, though in my experience support is not exisitng.
Very nice tutorial, but… can’t be a way of doing it for free?
If you find a working one, let me know.
Finally, I found useful post. Thanks for this. I will check SNAP for automatically posting from WordPress to Instagram.
Glad this post was helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
This is just what I was looking for. Thanks for this great post.
Sure, if you have any questions, feel free to ask.
Can I auto share Woocommerce product to Instagram?
Yes, it has that option.
This is very detailed tutorial. Thanks for letting me know about SNAP plugin.
If you have any questions how WordPress to Instagram functionality works, just ask.
this plugin Instagram Auto Poster dont work, i buy this and have a error , instagram blocked for security reason, thanks to code canyon, the devoleper is issue a money refund to who ever buy this plugin.
Thank you for letting me know about this issue. Maybe it will get fixed by author in the future.
I took a look at Instagram Auto Poster and it seems broken for the moment (developer tries to fix it).
Hello, SNAP Pro alone does not give you the ability to post to Instagram. For this, you need a yearly SNAP API subscription (49 $/year) wich is pretty expensive if you are not a pro. If you pay for the API, SNAP Pro is free.
Yes, SNAP in free version doesn’t have the option to post from WordPress to Instagram. $49/YEAR for SNAP API is not expensive at all considering what you get.
Also, you can use it on an unlimited number of your sites.
I have not tried or used neither plugin from mentioned. But second (AutoPosting to Instagram – WordPress Instagram Plugin Posting) says it was last updated 15 August 17.
Dont look at the changelog at the end as it is not automatically generated but depends if author ads it each time.
is there tool for posting wordpress video on instagram?
Good question. It seems SNAP doesn’t have that option and in case of video will probably just post featured image.
I dont know of plugin which can do that.
There is a free plugin for this in wp repo.
Ok, care to tell then which plugin is that?
Is the Instagram username and password stored in WordPress or is it sent to SNAP?
You have to input username and password in SNAP plugin settings from your site WordPress dashboard. I doubt it is stored anywhere so that author of plugin can see it.
Thanks for posting this i really need this.
If you have any questions, just let me know.
I purchased an Instagram Auto Poster Word Press to Instagram as you suggested, but I can;t figure out how to install it in my WordPress account
For any questions regarding problems with the plugin you should contact plugin author or support.
I have tried all my best to get instagram working to autopost on social media networks but to failure until I came across your article, KASA.
Thank you for your article KASA.
Glad to hear you manage to get it working.
Hi! Nice article, but I have one question. Why not to use online services for uploading pics from PC on insta? I upload and schedule photos thanks to push.photo . And without downloading any app (really hate having millions of apps). And it’s more convenient for me, because my laptop is on limit memory
This is first time I hear for push.photo. It looks as it can do the job right.
I prefer SNAP as it can post to dozens of social sharing sites automatically every time I publish new post.
This SNAP really looks interesting. I will definitely give it a go.
Let me know if you have any questions and feel free to leave your opinion when you try it.
Thanks for this awsome info 🙂 It was just what I needed for automatically publishing my WordPress post featured images to my Instagram account.
I am glad to see this post was of help to you. If you have any questions, let me know.
Hi Kasa, great post. Also check out the Blog2Social plugin or Webapp to automatically post and schedule image posts to Instagram.
This is how it works:
https://www.blog2social.com/en/faq/content/2/19/en/how-do-i-connect-blog2social-with-instagram.html
Hi Melanie,
Thank you for letting me know about Blog2Social plugin which also can be used to post from WordPress to Instagram automatically.
Blog2Social Requires at minimum a WordPress Business plan, even for the Blog2Social free version, FYI. Still growing the home business right now, was hoping to hold -off on the business plan until next year! LOL!
WP2Instagram is a free plugin to post automatically to instagram. just sign in with and thats it
Thank you for letting me know about this free plugin to automatically post from WordPress to Instagram.
As I can see it has been long time since it was last updated so I wonder if it still works.
Also plugin author didnt put much effort to at least add featured image for plugin and some description under FAQ and images under screenshots.
All this can help to prevail for potential users so that they install plugin.
I use SNAP to auto post my articles to social media. If i also use the instagram part will it post pictures from my articles? i only want my gallery to post to instagram.
It will only post featured image.
Anything for shopify?
I don’t use Shopify so can’t give you any suggestions.
Just bear in mind that whilst snap is great, the support is non existamt, so if it works for you great, but if it does not i would not hold your breath expecting support…
Yes, I agree. SNAP support is terrible. You can be lucky if you even receive answer.
Thank for the best article i readed. May i know how to display instagram in website? Onexe again thank you Kasa.
You can use InstaShow for displaying Instagram feed on your WordPress website.
Here is a free plugin for that : https://wordpress.org/plugins/auto-post-to-instagram/
I see it is new plugin without any reviews yet. I might give it a try to test. Thanks for letting me know about free option to automatically post WordPress featured image to Instagram account.
Hi,
I tried this and this stops me to auto publish on other social media, I have working plugin for fb,twitter, G+.
After activating this plugin, it’s posting to FB only..
Let me know if this worked for you.
Thanks
I personally didnt test this plugin as I see it was not updated for long time (in time of writing this).
I still recommend using SNAP PRO. I had some issues but now posting from WordPress to Instagram finally works smooth.
Can I post woocommerce products automatically in istagram using snap?
Yes, it has that option.
This is the best guideline how To Post From WordPress To Instagram. I would like to congratulation for this great contribution. Thanks a for sharing this content with us.
Glad I could help.