Instagram automation: The 4 most popular ways to streamline your social media

It's a content creator's eternal struggle: you don't want to spend all your time staring at a screen, but you also need to have an active and engaging social media presence if you want to build a following. When building a personal or company brand, you're probably trying to stay active not only on Instagram, but a handful of other popular social media platforms.

How do you manage a regular content creation schedule without either hiring a team of assistants or sacrificing all your free time (and peace of mind)? The answer, in a word, is automation. By connecting your Instagram for Business profile with other apps, you can automatically repurpose content across social channels, analyze engagement, and keep accurate backups of everything.

Here are the most popular ways to use Zapier's automated workflows (called Zaps) to send data to and from Instagram—no manual copying and pasting required.

Table of contents

• Cross-post to other social platforms

• Send notifications for new social posts

• Publish on other content platforms 

• Streamline file and data management

Cross-post to other social platforms

Odds are good that if you're building a presence on Instagram, it's not the only platform you're focusing on. Cross-posting your Instagram content to platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn is an easy way to get the most bang for your buck.

But manually copying and pasting posts from one platform to another can be time-consuming and inefficient. While you can always use dedicated social media management tools for more advanced multi-platform scheduling and analytics, sometimes simpler is better. If you just want to cross-post to your other profiles whenever you post to Instagram, these Zaps can handle that busy work for you.

Send notifications for new social posts

Sometimes you want to keep your team members or alternative audience in the loop about your Instagram activity. Maybe part of your community lives in a different time zone, and you have a robust Discord community. Or maybe you want to show off your brand's Instagram account on Slack or keep your larger community informed over email.

No matter your reasons for sharing posts beyond your IG followers, Zapier can get the job done. No more remembering to send that email blast or Discord shout-out; just enable one of these Zaps, and the right community will receive a message as soon as you create a new Instagram post.

Publish on other content platforms 

Managing webpage media is a full-time job in itself. But you're already creating lots of engaging, high-quality content on Instagram—why not have those posts pull double duty without you lifting a finger?

Repurposing posts across social media and your website is a great strategy for doing more with less. But you don't have to double-post the same content manually. Instead, use one of these Zaps to automatically create a post in Webflow, Google My Business, or a custom RSS feed whenever you post on Instagram. That way, your content platforms stay updated automatically—while you focus on more important tasks.

Streamline file and data management

If you're using Instagram for more than casual posting and keeping up with friends, you can probably benefit from tracking your posting data. Keeping accurate records of what you post and when lets you track progress toward your goals, spot trends, and plan for the future. Even if you just want to preserve a copy of all the photos you share, platforms like Dropbox, Google Sheets, and Airtable are great backup options.

But saving backups manually can be a major chore. Most people post to Instagram from a phone, which makes logging into a database or cloud storage account at the same time a little unwieldy. Even if you're managing your brand's Instagram on a computer, you're likely busy enough juggling multiple social media accounts and scheduling tools.

Thankfully, automation can simplify things for you. These Zaps automatically add new Instagram posts to your file storage or spreadsheet app. That way, your social activity is saved for analysis later without any extra effort on your part.

How will you automate Instagram?

While Instagram is a popular and engaging app for individuals, content creators, and brands alike, it can come with a lot of busy work. Using your Instagram content to its full potential usually means cross-posting to other platforms, notifying other audiences of your activity, and keeping accurate records of your posts. 

Instead of doing all this manually, why not let automation handle your busy work? Get more benefits from each Instagram post while saving yourself time in the process. And this is just the start of what you can do with Instagram and Zapier. What will you automate first?

This article was originally published in April 2020, written by Hannah Herman. It was most recently updated by Nicole Replogle in December 2024.