Creating and Managing an Instagram Hashtag Feed

Overview

A hashtag campaign is a great way to harness the engagement of Instagram. Set a designated hashtag, and display a feed of posts (images and videos) using that hashtag. Participants will be able to vote on and share these entries.

Account Setup Steps (Before Creating Feed)

Here's what you need to do before setting up your contest, if you're using Instagram:

1. Determine which Facebook Page you need to connect to your Instagram account for your hashtag contest. Learn more about setting up a Facebook Page by reading our Facebook Page Primer.
   
   
2. Create an Instagram Business Account (or convert an existing IG account to Business) if you have not already done so. Instructions for creating an account can be found in our blog post, How to Set Up an Instagram Business Profile.
   
   
3. During the process of creating/converting your Instagram account, connect your Instagram Business Account to your Facebook Page.

To be collected by your ShortStack feed, posts must be made from a public profile and include the hashtag(s) you indicated when setting up the feed in the original post caption. If you are requiring the use of your @mention, that must be included as well. In that case, entries would look similar to this:



As you can see, one of the best things about this process is that people who view the entry post will also see your business tagged in the entry. The @mention in hashtag contest entries increases brand awareness.

  The Instagram account you want to use to set up your feed must be an Instagram Business Account.

  To be an Instagram Business Account, the account must be linked to a Facebook Page.

  You will have to be logged into a Facebook account, and that account must have admin access to the Page or be granted sufficient permissions to the Page via Facebook Business Manager.

Note: Further help with adding permissions via Facebook Business Manager can be found in our Granting Page Permissions Using Facebook Business Manager help doc.

Once those prerequisites have all been met, you can use these steps to set up your feed:

1. From your Dashboard, click Feeds at the top.
2. Click the blue New Feed button.
3. If you don't already have a Facebook account linked to your ShortStack, a pop-up will appear asking you to log into Facebook - if it does, log into the account that has admin access to the Facebook Page to which your Instagram account is connected.
   
   Once that's done, you'll be presented with a list of Pages and each one's connected Instagram account; click the one you want to use.
4. Use the fields provided to name your new feed. If you want the entries to be added to a new list, select Automatically create new list - otherwise, select an existing list from the drop-down. Then, click Continue.
5. From here, you'll have to make a choice; whether to have the hashtagged posts include your @mention or not. By default, your @mention will not be required. Keep in mind that if you choose this option, there are some restrictions:
   
   - You won't be able to limit the max number of entries from a single user.
   - You won't be able to utilize the Rights Management tool for entries.
   - Emojis will not be supported in hashtags.
   
   If you'd like to switch to requiring your @mention, click not required and it will switch to required.
   
   Do note that if you require the @mention, it must be included in the original caption of the post, along with the hashtag.
   
6. In the field provided, enter the hashtag(s) you want to use to pull in entries. If you want to use multiple hashtags, separate each one with a comma; do note that if you use multiple hashtags, the feed will only pull in entries that use all of the hashtags you designate. An example post will display on the right - this helps to visualize what a post needs to include to be pulled into the feed.
   
   You can also click on all entries to change the types of entries you want the feed to pull in, or click on Manually to switch between approval modes for your entries.
   
   Once you're done, click the blue Continue button.
7. From there, add the start and stop dates and times; also, select a timezone.
8. If you want to add Instagram usernames to a block list or set a maximum number of entries per user, click on Show Advanced Settings, and make the changes there. When you're done, click Save & Exit.
9. You'll now be shown a summary of your feed, with the feed's name at the top. If you need to change any of the settings, you can just click on the setting you'd like to change, and you'll be brought back to that section of the setup wizard. Otherwise, click Save & Exit to finish up.

From there, you're done! You'll be taken back to the Feeds Manager, and you'll see your new feed appear on the list.

Note: Due to limitations of Instagram's API, Feeds will not pull posted media from Stories - only Posts.

If you run into any problems with the setup of your Instagram Hashtag Feed, no worries - check out our help doc that covers Troubleshooting Issues with Feeds and Facebook/Instagram Importer Tools.

Using ShortStack's Rights Management Tool 

Learn more about requesting rights for entries pulled in using a feed in the Rights Management for Instagram help doc.