Link Facebook and Instagram

9 blockages out of 10 come from one of these 2 conditions. Better to settle them now than at step 4.

• Your Instagram account has to be professional. A personal account cannot be linked. If that is not done yet, follow the guide on how to create an Instagram professional account, it takes 5 minutes.
• You have to be an administrator of the Facebook Page. The editor role is not enough, the link button stays greyed out.

Have your Instagram username and password ready too. You will type them yourself, in an official window.

Go to business.facebook.com and log in with the Facebook account that administers your Page.

Meta Business Suite is the free dashboard that runs Facebook and Instagram from a single screen. It is where your agents work afterwards, every day.

Check at the top left that the Page shown is yours. If you manage several, the selector lets you switch.

The direct shortcut is business.facebook.com/latest/settings/instagram_accounts. It drops you on the right screen without any menu hunting.

Through the menus it is just as simple. At the bottom left, click Settings, the cog.

• Open the Accounts section, then Instagram accounts.
• Click Connect account.

A shortcut sometimes appears on the dashboard, a banner offering to connect Instagram. It leads to the same place, follow it without worry.

If the label is not that one. Meta renames its screens several times a year. Trust the meaning of the action, here connecting an Instagram account, rather than the exact word. The settings search bar finds the screen with the single word Instagram.

An official Instagram window opens. Enter your username and your password.

Instagram then asks you to allow access to your messages. Accept, it is what brings your Instagram and Messenger conversations together in a single inbox.

Confirm with Confirm. If a screen offers to attach the account to your business portfolio, accept that too. It is the structure Meta uses to organise your accounts, and it will serve you for advertising.

If the link does not go through from the computer, take the opposite route, from your phone. It is the only screen with no equivalent on a computer, so keep it in reserve.

• Open your Instagram profile, then the 3 lines at the top right.
• Go to Settings, then to the part reserved for professionals.
• Choose Connect a Facebook Page and select yours from the list.

Another route on a phone, just as valid, is Edit profile, then Page, then pick your Page.

If your Page does not appear in the list, 9 times out of 10 it is the role on the Page that is missing. Go back over the first step, ask for the administrator role, and the Page will appear.

Go back to Meta Business Suite. The 2 logos, Facebook and Instagram, now appear side by side at the top of your dashboard, and the follower count adds up both networks.

Test the inbox. A message sent on Instagram should now land in the same screen as your Messenger messages.

Your 2 networks are joined up. All that is missing is the advertising engine to run your ads on both at once, and that happens in a separate account, described in our guide to the Meta ad account.

On the content side, the next question is what to post and in which format, which is far from obvious between posts, stories and reels, see our guide to Instagram formats.

Once the 2 accounts are linked, run them from Meta Business Suite. That is where you read the messages, the insights and the scheduled posts for both networks.

This link can be made in one direction or the other, as you prefer. There is no point doing them all, the result is identical.

The 2 prerequisites. Your Instagram account has to be professional, and you have to be an administrator of the Facebook Page. Sort those 2 points first and everything else follows without a hitch.

Route 1, from Meta Business Suite, on a computer. The most direct and the most stable. Open business.facebook.com/latest/settings/instagram_accounts, then Connect account.

Route 2, from your Facebook Page, on a computer. Open your Page, switch to Page mode rather than personal profile, then Settings, then Linked accounts. Instagram and WhatsApp sit side by side there. Click Connect account, then log in to Instagram.

Route 3, from the Instagram app, on a phone. The 3 lines at the top right, then the professional tools and controls, then Connect a Facebook Page. This is the route to favour if you only have a mobile.

Worth knowing, you unlink in the same place. Note it down somewhere. The day you want to undo the link, you will know where to go in 10 seconds.

The setting not to miss along the way. Switch on access to Instagram messaging. It is what lets you read and answer messages from both networks in one place, and it is the most concrete day-to-day benefit of this link.

And if a label has changed. Meta regularly renames its screens, and the Linked accounts section has already carried several names. Trust the meaning of the action, connecting or linking an account, and use the settings search. The feature does not disappear, it moves house.