The Instagram datasource allows you to display posts from your Instagram account on your Smartsign screens.
This makes it easy to show social media updates, campaigns, brand content,
or community engagement directly in your digital signage content.
How it works
Once connected, Smartsign securely integrates with your Instagram account and retrieves posts from the selected Instagram page.
The selected posts are then available inside the template and displayed according to your configuration, such as:
- How many posts to show
- How long each post is displayed
- Whether videos and emojis are enabled
The content is automatically updated at a defined interval. If an update fails, screens keep showing the posts they already have.
Requirements
To use the Instagram datasource, you need:
- A professional Instagram account
- A Facebook page that the Instagram account is linked to, and a Facebook account that manages that page. You sign in with this Facebook account, and only Instagram accounts linked to pages it can access are listed.
- Screens that can reach https://social.smartsigncloud.net
If video is enabled, the screen must support HTML video playback.
The Instagram datasource needs internet access to Smartsign's cloud social service. Both the browser you use to connect the account and the on premise server must be able to reach it.
Learn more about professional Instagram accounts:
Set up the datasource
The first step is to configure the Instagram datasource.
- Go to Templates -> Datasources, click Add datasource and select Create new.
- Select the Instagram datasource.
- Enter Name and Description.
- Click Connect next to Instagram Account and sign in with
Facebook in the popup window. Then choose the account in
Instagram Page.
- Click Create and verify that data can be fetched successfully.
Datasource is now ready to be used.
Reconnect your Instagram account
If your Instagram accounts can't be loaded with the stored sign-in, for example because the access has expired, the datasource shows the message "You've previously linked Smartsign Integration to Instagram. If you would like to continue with the previous settings you need to reconnect to your Instagram account."
- Open the datasource and click the cross next to Instagram Account.
- Confirm that you want to remove the account.
- Click Connect and sign in with Facebook again.
Use Instagram templates
When the datasource is configured, you can use an Instagram template to display posts on your screens.
Smartsign offers a few default Instagram templates available in the Marketplace and you can also design your own using the Template Creator.
In this guide, we will create a template from scratch.
- Go to Templates and create a new template.
- Set base settings such as template size and background color.
tip
Enable grid settings to make it easier to align the text boxes and other media items.
- Select Connect new datasource and select Instagram
- You can now adjust datatasource settings as per table below.
- Click Connect when done.
- Select Available for quick edit under the connected datasource to
easily access datasource settings when creating and publishing Smart
Media from the template.
- You can now start to add placeholders for the datasource.
- Instagram - Message Author
Add textbox and bind it to Instagram - Message Author to show Instagram page name.
- Instagram - Message Date and Instagram - Message
Add textboxes and bind them to Instagram - Message Date and Instagram - Message to display the post content.
- Image
Add an image placeholder and bind it to Instagram - Message Image or Instagram - Embedded Url QR-code.
- You can also bind text items to Instagram - Message Like Count and Last update time.
- Instagram - Message Author
- Complete the template by adding any additional design elements as needed.
The template is now complete and can be published to the screens.
Configure datasource settings
Apart from changing datasource settings when creating a template, they can also be adjusted when using template in a booking or media library.
Edit original template
- Select Edit template in options menu.
- Open the datasource settings.
- Adjust settings as needed.
- Save the template.
Edit in booking or media library
You can also modify these settings directly from the booking where the media is published or in the Media Library if the Smart Media is saved to a dedicated folder.
In Edit media, click the datasource under Datasources to open Edit datasource settings. Only datasources marked Available for quick edit in the template are listed. To open the settings, users need View and Edit under Template datasource in their user profile, which the default Site owner and Group admin profiles have and the default Publisher profile does not.
| Setting | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Number of posts to show | The maximum number of posts to display | 4 |
| Time between posts | Time in seconds for each post | 10 |
| Enable emojis | Enable to show emojis | Enabled |
| Enable video | Enable to allow video (muted only) | Disabled |
| Show progress | Display a visual progress indicator for posts | Disabled |
Limitations and considerations
Video playback
If video is enabled:
- Posts containing video will automatically adjust their duration to match the video length.
- The screen must support HTML video streaming.
- Performance and stability depend on the screen manufacturer and hardware capabilities.
- Some videos may not be available for playback (e.g. content flagged for a copyright violation). In these cases, a thumbnail image will be shown instead of the video.
Videos are streamed directly to the screen. This may require significant network bandwidth and could incur additional costs on metered connections.
Hardware support
- Not supported on Legacy hardware