Creating Content for Instagram

Gain supports direct publishing for Business and Creator accounts. For guidance on converting your personal profile to a business or creator account, see this Instagram help article.

Personal accounts will need manual publishing through Gain Notify app. This is because of API limitations set by Instagram.

To add new Instagram profiles to your workspace, follow the steps outlined here.

Before you get started

To counteract spam and misuse on its platform, Instagram can restrict the frequency of certain actions like following/unfollowing, liking, and publishing. While these restrictions are often lifted within 48 hours, the actual duration is determined by Instagram's strict Community Guidelines.
You can post up to 25 times in 24 hours via third-party apps. To publish more content, use Instagram directly. This limit doesn't apply to stories and posts published manually using the Gain Notify app.
Instagram Business accounts with large audiences might need to confirm their identity for added security.
- Here's what you'll have to do:
  1. Enable 2-step verification to protect the account from unauthorized access.
  2. Confirm your primary location by turning on your mobile device's location services.

Set a default publishing mode

Gain supports automatic publishing for photo posts, video posts, carousels (more than one photo or a combination of photos and video), Stories, and Reels. Alternatively, you can opt for manual publishing and assign a Team Member to publish posts through the Instagram app.

Go to Workspace Settings > Social Channel and find your Instagram account.
Click Manage.
Choose your preferred publishing mode and click Set as Default Publishing Mode.

You can also switch the publishing mode on a per-post basis under Publishing in the content editor.

Supported formats

MP4, MOV, JPG, PNG, GIF.
Max image size: 8MB (Optimal resolution: around 1200px).
Video posts: Up to 100MB (3-90 seconds, 4:5 to 16:9 aspect ratio). Videos outside the supported limits can be published through the Gain Notify app.
Photo Stories: Up to 5MB.
Video Stories: Up to 600MB, 60 seconds max. The video duration has a hard limit (up to 60 seconds), so you can’t upload videos with a fraction of a second over the time limit. HDR videos are not publishing correctly due to an Instagram bug. We recommend SDR.
Reels: Up to 100MB, 90 seconds max. 1920 pixel max width and 9:16 aspect ratio (tall). Videos outside the supported limits can be published through the Gain Notify app.
The character limit for post copy is 2200.

Note: Instagram compresses your photos when uploading. Follow these guidelines for the best possible quality:

Square (1:1): 1080px by 1080px
Horizontal (16:9): Make the height at least 1080px
Vertical (4:5): 1080px by 1350px

Post types

You can create and schedule photo and video posts, carousels (up to 10 images and/or videos), Reels, and Stories. (Animated GIFs are published as videos.)

Editing photos

All the photos or images you upload to a photo post will appear in the Media Tray and from there, you can choose the ones that will appear in the published post.

To remove a photo from the post, click the [X] on its top-right corner. This will remove it from the preview. To add a different one, select it from the media tray.
To edit your photo, hover over the image and click on the three dots in the left corner. Gain's photo editor allows you to crop, resize, add text, and apply effects to your images.

Select or upload a thumbnail cover for videos

Once you upload your video, you can select a still frame from the video or upload an image as a thumbnail cover.

Select a frame in the video as thumbnail cover

In the Thumbnail Cover section, click "Select frame."
Drag the slider to the position in the video that you want to use as your cover and click Save.

Upload a custom thumbnail cover

In the Thumbnail Cover section, you can upload a cover from your computer, choose a file from your Gain Folders, or Import from another source.

Note: You can only upload PNG or JPEG images of up to 5MB.

Stories

You can upload both Photo and Video Stories to Gain.

When it comes to Photo Stories, you can drag and drop up to 10 slides. However, elements like polls, tags, stickers, or music are only available on the Instagram app and can't be added to your stories from the Gain post editor.
Video stories can be up to 600MB and 60 seconds max. We recommend SDR, as HDR videos are not publishing correctly due to an Instagram bug.
You can combine photos and videos in one Story!

Tag people and create collaborations in your posts

To collaborate with other Instagram accounts and/or tag an Instagram profile in your image, for both cases, follow these steps:

Click the three dots on the top left corner of the image you want to tag and select Tag People.

To add a tag for other profiles on the image: Click the location on the image where you want to place the tag. Type the profile handle and click Add Tag.
To collaborate with other Instagram accounts: click on the search bar under "Collaborators" and type their Instagram handle:

Once you're finished, click on the X to close this screen and go back to the post editor.

Note: You can only tag up to 20 public accounts per image. Gain won't provide suggestions, so be sure to have the correct username at hand.

Plan your Instagram feed

The grid shows up to 20 live posts, even if they were posted outside of Gain. You can rearrange them on the grid by changing the publish dates and sorting by their status.

To access your grid, find the Instagram logo on the top left of your navigation bar.
Click on the publish date, select a new date/time, and then click Preview. Your post will change positions on the grid.

Changing the dates rearranges the content on the grid only for preview purposes. When you're happy with your changes, click Save Changes to apply all the new publishing dates to your content.

To leave the grid without saving any changes, click Close Grid, then Close Without Saving.

Note: Instagram Grid is available for your Clients, too! Approver-only users can preview how their Instagram posts you send them for approval will appear in the feed. This option is available on their Approvals page. Check this article for more info.

Schedule a First Comment

Scheduling a first comment is an easy way to boost engagement and increase reach on Instagram. First comment is available for both manual and direct publishing.

You can add your first comment in the First Comment field under Caption.

Note: You can only use 30 hashtags in your post caption and first comment combined.

Instagram limits first comments to up to 2,000 characters and 10 mentions.

Set Up Push Notifications via Gain Notify

When posts are set to manual publishing, you can download the Gain Notify mobile app to receive reminders when it's time to post. The Gain Notify app transfers the post(s) to your phone for easy publishing.

Remember that only people with the Publisher or Admin role can be set as manual publishers for an Instagram channel. You can designate a manual publisher in the Workspace Settings menu under Social Channels.

Click Manage next to the Instagram channel
In the section Manual Publishing, pick a user from the dropdown list.

This person will now receive push notifications through the Gain Notify app. The Gain Notify app is available for download on both Android and iOS. Be sure to allow push notifications from Gain Notify on your mobile device.

Post to Instagram with Gain Notify

Posts will show chronologically by publish date and social profile name in the Pending tab within the Gain Notify app. You'll only see posts precisely at the time or after they're due to be published, and not before.

Any posts pending manual publishing on your calendar will be set to "MPUB" status until you publish them on Instagram.
Gain Notify stores images and videos on your mobile device.
Post captions are automatically copied to your clipboard. Tap and hold to paste them into the caption field.
In the Gain Notify app, the Posted section displays all the content you've manually published. You can find the post you've previously published and remove it by tapping I Already Published This. This action will update your post's status from "MPUB" to "Live" on your calendar.