STOP! You are welcome to read this post and understand the background on my search for a complete solution to posting images to Instagram from the Web.
However, if you just want to cut to the chase and get to a solution that works, read this article instead. Of all the solutions I have tried, it is the best.
–Sean
It amazes me how many people I talk to that are frustrated with the simple problem of posting Instagram photos from your desktop.
You know the scenario: you went on vacation, you took a ton of photos with your DSLR camera and now you want to upload them to Instagram.
The problem is, Instagram is really designed for use with mobile devices and the only TRUE way to get photos from your DSLR to Instagram is to transfer your photos on to the memory of your iPhone or the SD card of your Android device and upload the from the Instagram app.
Trust me, read this article and you’ll see that I have tried apps like Gramblr. I have tried BlueStacks and Botio. They just didn’t work for me.
Up until now, my workaround has been to upload my photos to Dropbox from my laptop and then share them from the Dropbox app to Instagram.
The problem is it takes forever to upload the photos to Dropbox and I only have so much space on their file sharing service.
Finally, however, a solution has presented itself. At long last, we can now actually upload photos from our PCs and Macs directly to Instagram.
Well….almost directly to Instagram. Enough with the buildup, here are the steps:
1. Create a Hootsuite account.
2. Log in to your Hootsuite account
3. In the upper-left corner of Hootsuite, click on your profile photo. This will bring up a list of your information and show the social networks that you have connected to Hootsuite.
4. Next, click the blue button with a big plus sign that says “Add A Social Network”
5. Choose to connect Instagram to your Hootsuite account. As part of the setup process, you’ll need to login using your Instagram credentials and accept the permissions to allow Hootsuite to publish to your Instagram account.
6. Read the information CAREFULLY about how Hootsuite to Instagram publishing works. Essentially, you can schedule the Instagram post in Hootsuite and, when it comes time to publish, you will get a notification to complete the publication process in the Instagram app on your mobile device.
Yes…you read that correctly. Publishing from Hootsuite to Instagram is a 2-step process.
Hey, I didn’t say it was a completely flawless, entirely-smooth way of publishing to Instagram, but it actually does work.
7. Try a test post. Now that you have connected Instagram to Hootsuite, you’ll see the Instagram account in the list of available accounts to the left of the status entry box.
8. To attach a photo from your desktop PC or Mac, just click the paper clip icon to attach a photo and then choose the “Select files to upload” button. From there, you can choose your image to post to Instagram.
9. The final step is simply to wait for the notification to approve the posting to Instagram. Once that is completed and you have approved the post, your photo will be live on Instagram, as well as the caption that you typed as the status update in Hootsuite.
So there it is, the next evolution of posting photos from your PC or Mac to Instagram.
It’s not sexy, it’s not an elegant solution, but hey…it works. Here’s a video from Hootsuite that gives an overview of the integration:
As you can probably tell from my previous posts, I have been looking for this solution for a long time, so if you have a better way, I’m all ears!
Leave a comment below and let me know if you run into any issues with using Hootsuite to post to Instagram. If you have a better solution, let me know and I’ll give it a try.
Cheers!
–Sean
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