Instagram and Facebook

How to connect your Instagram and Facebook accounts, write and schedule posts, and push an event straight to social.

You do not need an event to post. From event in the composer is a shortcut that fills the caption and the picture in for you; leave it on None (write from scratch) and write whatever you like — a new menu, the terrace opening, a Sunday roast.

You'll find all of this under Publishing in the left-hand menu.

Before you start

You need two things on the Meta side:

• A Facebook Page for your venue that you manage. If you don't manage any Page, the connection can't be made.
• An Instagram business account linked to that Page, if you want to post to Instagram as well. One connection covers both.

If Publishing is missing from your menu, it has been switched off for your venue. Ask your Noctessa contact to turn it back on.

Connect your accounts

1. Open Publishing.
2. Look at the Connections card on the right.
3. Click Connect with Facebook.
4. Sign in to Facebook and accept the permissions.
5. You come back to Publishing with a green Connected message naming the Page, and the Instagram username if one was linked.

Each account then shows its own row — Instagram and Facebook — with a connected or not connected badge, the account name, and when the connection expires.

If you don't see a Connect with Facebook button, Facebook connecting hasn't been set up for your site yet. In that case the card shows fields for a Display name, an ID and an Access token instead. That path is meant for setup and testing — ask your Noctessa contact before using it.

What you are allowing

When you accept the Facebook screen, you allow Noctessa to:

• see the list of Facebook Pages you manage,
• publish posts to the Page you connect,
• read the basic details of the Instagram business account linked to that Page,
• publish to that Instagram account,
• work with the business assets tied to your account.

What is kept: the access permission itself (stored encrypted), the Page and profile identifiers, which permissions you granted, when they expire, and the posts you wrote here with their results and links.

What is never collected: your followers, your direct messages, or audience data. Your access permission is kept until you disconnect or it expires, and it is never sent anywhere except Meta.

What has to be true for a post to go out

Everything that has to be in place is on your side of the connection:

• A Facebook Page for your venue that you manage, and — to post to Instagram — an Instagram business account linked to that Page. One connection covers both.
• That account showing connected on its row in Connections, with an expiry date still ahead of you.

Connections is where you check this. Each row carries a connected or not connected badge, the account it points at, and the date the connection runs out. A row reading not connected, or an expiry date that has passed, is the whole answer: use Connect with Facebook again and sign in with the Facebook account that manages the Page. If the Instagram row is empty while Facebook is connected, no Instagram business account is linked to that Page — link it on Instagram, then reconnect here.

Nothing is silently faked. Every post tells you, per channel, exactly what happened.

Write a post

1. Open Publishing.
2. In Compose post, pick a published event under From event if you want the caption and image filled in for you, or leave it on None (write from scratch).
3. Write your Caption.
4. Paste a public image address into Image URL. A small preview appears. Instagram always needs an image.
5. Under Channels, tick Instagram, Facebook, or both. Each one shows whether it is connected.
6. Click Publish now.

If you tick a channel that isn't connected, a warning appears straight away: that channel will be skipped and the post stays a draft until you connect the account.

Save draft keeps the post without sending it. You can publish it later from the Posts list below.

About the picture

Use the flyer your designer gave you, exactly as it came. When the picture is one Noctessa is holding for you — the event's Featured image, or another file you have uploaded here — whatever Instagram needs is taken care of for you before the post goes out: if the flyer has to be prepared, an Instagram copy of it is made, with a border added rather than the sides trimmed, so a lineup or a door time printed near the edge is never cut off. Your original is left untouched — your event page and your website keep showing exactly the file you uploaded.

A picture you paste in from somewhere else on the web goes to Instagram as it stands. If it comes back refused, put that same file on the event as its Featured image and post the event instead.

If Instagram still refuses the picture, don't go and re-export it — that one is ours to fix. Send the failed line from the post's results to your Noctessa contact.

Schedule a post for later

1. Fill in the post as above.
2. Set a date and time in Schedule.
3. A Schedule button appears next to Publish now. Click it.

The post appears in Posts with a Scheduled badge and the time you chose, and goes out at that time. Leave Schedule empty if you want to publish now or keep a draft.

To stop a scheduled post, find it in Posts and click Cancel.

Post an event

You don't have to retype an event you already created.

From the Events list: open the three-dot menu on the event row and choose Publish to social.

From an event you're editing: click the Publish to social button at the bottom of the form.

Either way a Publish to social window opens with the caption and the event's featured image already filled in, and your connected channels already ticked. Edit the caption if you want, then click Publish now.

Two things you might see instead:

• No social account connected — with a Connect accounts button that takes you to Publishing.
• Social publishing is off — publishing is switched off for your venue, and the platform operator can turn it on.

The window locks after one attempt so you can't accidentally post the same thing twice. To try again, go to Publishing and use the Posts list.

Track what happened

The Posts list under the composer shows every post with a badge:

Badge	What it means
Draft	Saved, not sent.
Scheduled	Waiting for its time.
Publishing	Being sent right now.
Published	Went out on every channel you picked.
Partial	Went out on some channels, not all.
Failed	Did not go out.
Cancelled	You stopped it.

Under each post you see one line per channel. A successful line carries a view link straight to the live post. A line reading skipped · not connected means that account wasn't linked when the post ran. A failed line shows the reason it came back with.

Row buttons: Publish now (on drafts, scheduled and failed posts), Cancel (on drafts and scheduled posts) and Delete, which asks you to confirm and cannot be undone.

Disconnect an account

In Connections, click Disconnect on the Instagram or Facebook row. Posting to that channel stops immediately. Existing posts and their results stay in your Posts list.

If something looks wrong

• The Publishing menu item is gone. Publishing is switched off for your venue. Ask your Noctessa contact.
• The account shows "not connected" after you connected it. Connections expire. Reconnect with Connect with Facebook — the expiry date is shown on the account row.
• A post came back "skipped". That channel had no connected account when it ran. Connect it, then use Publish now on the post.
• Instagram failed but Facebook worked. Instagram is the stricter of the two, and it is nearly always the picture. If you pasted the address of a picture hosted elsewhere, set that file as the event's Featured image and post the event instead. If the picture was already one of yours here, send the failed line to your Noctessa contact — you should not have to re-export anything.
• Everything fails with a Meta message. The permissions Meta has granted for your account are the limiting factor, not your settings. Send the exact message shown on the failed line to your Noctessa contact.
• A post says "Already published". It has gone out once. Compose a new post rather than republishing that one.