Everything You Need To Know About Instagram Creator Studio

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If you want to keep your audience engaged, it’s important to stay active on Instagram. Regular posting ensures that your profile appears in the feed of your followers, keeping it top of mind. It also increases your chances of discovery by new users.

While you can use the Instagram app to publish your posts, it lacks the ability to schedule content, which means that if you want to post content at times when you might not be able to use the Instagram app, you’re out of luck.

There are of course a number of third-party solutions available to help you manage your Instagram profile, but while they may offer the features you require, they’re usually paid.

With the introduction of Creator Studio, Facebook has created a free tool that allows you to easily manage your Instagram profile, allowing you to schedule content and more.

Let’s look at what Instagram Creator Studio is, how you can use it, and why it’s a good alternative to third-party solutions in a bit more detail below.

What is the Instagram Creator Studio?

Creator Studio is a set of tools that allow you to post, schedule, manage, monetize, and analyze content on your Facebook pages or Instagram accounts. Although it was first introduced in 2017 as a tool specifically for Facebook, its functionality was limited and was tricky to use.

Relaunched in 2020 with support for Instagram, Creator Studio now has become a lot more popular, in part due to Facebook starting to phase out its Publishing Tools for Pages, and also because unlike many third-party scheduling solutions, Creator Studio is free and a native solution.

With Instagram Creator Studio you can:

  • Get an overview of all your content (photos, videos, IGTV, Stories, etc.) on your desktop
  • Schedule your Instagram content
  • Get insights into metrics of your posts and profile such as performance, follower data, and engagement type
  • Monetize content and manage brand collaborations if eligible

Before You Get Started with Instagram Creator Studio

Before you can start using Instagram Creator Studio, you need to ensure that your Instagram account is set up correctly. You’ll need:

  • An Instagram account and Facebook Page
  • To connect your Instagram account to the Facebook Page
  • To switch your Instagram account to a Creator Account or business profile if you haven’t already

How to connect Instagram to Facebook Creator Studio

Connecting your Instagram profile to Creator Studio is a simple process once you’ve ensured that your Instagram account is set up correctly. You’ll need to:

  1. Head over to https://facebook.com/creatorstudio
  2. Click on the Instagram icon in the top-center of the page

    Instagram Icon

  3. Click on the Instagram Login button to open the Instagram login page. Follow the instructions to log in.

    Creator Studio for Instagram

  4. If you haven’t already connected your Instagram account to a Facebook page, you’ll be given instructions on how to do so.
  5. Congratulations! You’ve successfully connected Instagram to Creator Studio, you can now start using the tool.

How to use Creator Studio for Instagram

Instagram Creator Studio allows you to post and schedule content, get insights into your account, and monetize it. Let’s look at each of these in a bit more detail below.

When you first log in to Instagram Creator Studio, you’ll be presented with your Content Library which gives you an overview of all the content you’ve posted on your Instagram profile. This includes video, photo, carousel, stories, and IGTV content.

You can also view the content types individually by selecting the appropriate tab.

Content Library

Using the menu on the left-hand side of Creator Studio allows you to navigate through the various sections of the tool, including Content Libary, Calendar, Insights, Monetization, and Instagram Accounts.

Creator Studio Menu

The Calendar tab takes you to a calendar overview of all your scheduled content, Insights take you to the analytics and Monetization allows you to manage your brand collaborations. If you’ve connected more than one Instagram account to Creator Studio, you can manage which ones are displayed from the Instagram Accounts tab.

As the name suggests, the green Create Post button allows you to create a post, which we’ll look at in more detail below.

How to Post on Instagram from Creator Studio

With Instagram Creator Studio you have the ability to create two types of posts: Feed posts and IGTV. To post on Instagram from Creator Studio you need to do the following:

  1. Click the green “Create Posts” button in the top-left corner of the Creator Studio menu.

    Create Post

  2. Select either Instagram Feed or IGTV depending on the type of post you want to create.
  3. If you’ve selected Instagram Feed, a window will pop up as shown below. Here you can add the photo(s) or video of your choice, your description, and the post’s location.

    Post to Instagram Feed

  4. Click “Add Content” to select the file you want to publish. You can either upload it from your computer or from a Facbook page.

    Add Content

  5. To tag accounts in your post click on the “Tag Media” icon below the post. Now click anywhere in your post and enter the name of the account you want to tag.

    Tag Account

  6. You can turn off comments by clicking on “Advanced Settings” and changing the “Turn Off Commenting” toggle to the on position.

    Turn off Commenting

  7. You can access Instagram’s Accessibility tools and add alt text to your posts by clicking on “Advanced Settings” and adding your description for visually-impaired users.

    Accessibility

  8. If you’re happy with your post you can click on the blue “Publish” button in the bottom-left of Creator Studio.

Publish

To create an IGTV post from Instagram Creator Studio do the following:

  1. Click the green “Create Post” button and select IGTV from the menu that appears. A window will pop up where you can add a title, description, and video.

    Post to IGTV

  2. Upload your video and add your title and description.
  3. If you want your IGTV video to appear in your feed tick the “Share Preview To Feed” box.
  4. To select the cover thumbnail for your video click on “Cover Image” and either upload a custom thumbnail, choose a video frame, or if you want Instagram to generate one automatically.
  5. If you’re happy with everything, click the blue “Publish” button to share your IGTV video.

How to Schedule Instagram Posts with Facebook Creator Studio

What’s great about Instagram Creator Studio is that it allows you to schedule posts ahead of time, making it easy for you to stay active and post at the right time without having to spend tons of time each day doing so manually.

To schedule posts with Instagram Create Studio, follow the same steps as you would for creating a regular post, as listed above, and then doing the following:

  1. Click on the down arrow on the blue “Publish” button.
  2. Select the date and time you would like to publish your post via the pop-up.

    Schedule Post

  3. Once you’re happy with the date and time, click schedule to add the post to your calendar. To get an overview of your scheduled posts, click on the Calendar menu option.

Calendar

Now that you’ve shared your posts, you’ll want to take a look at their performance. You can do this via Insights, which we’ll look at in more detail below.

Insights in Instagram Creator Studio

If you’re looking to find out more about your audience and how your posts performed, you can do so under the Insights tab in Instagram Creator Studio. There are two areas that Insights covers. These are:

  • Audience: Here you can get information about your followers such as age range, gender, location (top countries and cities).
  • Activity: Here you can get information about how people engage with your Instagram account. You’ll get access to your posts’ reach, impressions, and actions people have taken (website visits, profile visits, calls, texts, emails, and got directions).

To view your Insights you need to:

  1. Click the Insights tab in the Creator Studio menu
  2. Select either “Activity” or “Audience” depending on what information you want to view

If you choose “Activity” you’ll be presented with an overview of the actions taken on your account and the reach of your account. This includes the number of website visits, profile visits, calls, texts, emails, and people that got directions, as well as the total number of impressions.

Insights Activity

If you select “Audience”, you’ll get an age and gender breakdown of your followers, information about when they are on Instagram, and a list of the top countries and cities that your followers are from.

Insights Audience

How to use Monetization in Creator Studio

If you have more than 10,000 followers, you can monetize your content and collaborate with brands. Creator Studio allows you to manage and monitor the status of your monetized content and brand collabs.

To apply for brand collaborations, manage your content, and see which other monetization deals you qualify for, click on the “Monetization” tab in the menu. You will be presented with the Brand Collabs Manager that gives you an overview of your sponsored content.

Monetization

Using More Than One Instagram Account

If you need to manage more than one Instagram account, Creator Studio lets you easily add more than one and also lets you choose which accounts to display during a session.

Navigate to the “Instagram Accounts” menu item and you’ll be presented with a list of connected accounts.

Instagram Accounts

To add another account, click the “Add Instagram Account” button in the top-left corner and follow the instructions to log in with the account you want to use.

Add Instagram Account

Once you’ve added the account, you can click on the down arrow next to your account name in order to select which profiles you want to view.

Choose the Profiles You Want to View

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Wrapping Up

As you can see from the above, it’s easy to use Creator Studio for Instagram.

Using Creator Studio, you can get an overview of all your content, post to Instagram, schedule posts, view your scheduled posts, view insights about your audience and posts, as well as monetize your content and manage brand collaborations.

All this and you can do it for multiple accounts. Not bad for a free tool!

Do you use Creator Studio? What do you find the most useful feature? Are there any features you think are missing? Let me know in the comments below.

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