Having an Instagram account for your school can be a great way to grow and attract more students. Here are some step by step instructions on how to set one up.
You can either watch the YouTube video below, or follow the step by step instructions below the video.
How to Set Up Your School’s Instagram Account
First, open Instagram on your pc or laptop. Once you have it open, you’ll need to sign up for an account by clicking Create a New Account at the bottom of the page.
Next, fill out all the information requested. Enter your email, school name and User Name.
You can use your school name for both Full Name and User Name.
Note that both must be under 30 characters and the User Name cannot have spaces in it.
As you will be linking this to your school Facebook page, it is best to use the same email address as you used to create your school Facebook page. If you don’t have a Facebook page please see How to Set Up a Facebook Page for Your School.
Note that no one can see any of the information you enter apart from the name and username. The reason behind asking for your age is for security reasons.
Once you have filled out all the information, select the submit button at the bottom of the screen. You will need a security code which can be texted or emailed to you. You will then be redirected to the main Instagram page.
Making Your Account a Business or Professional Account
To officially become a business or professional account, you will need to go into your profile settings.
Select the three lines in the bottom left hand corner and open settings.
Scroll down in settings until you find: ‘Account type and tools’, click on it.
Then click ‘Switch to Professional account’ then select the most accurate description for your school.
Using a Professional account for your school on Instagram will mean that people can contact you directly by email or phone from your Instagram account. It will also give you access to Insights which will show you when your followers are most active on Instagram and how many people your posts are reaching.
Instagram will then double check your contact information to put on your profile, if you don’t want this information public then leave the box saying ‘show contact info on profile’ empty.
To give parents and students more information about your school, upload a profile picture of your school logo and add a bio as a description for your school. Remember to include the type of school, age range of students, and highlight your school’s strengths and its Unique Selling Point.
How to Post on Instagram
To keep parents and students updated and reach new parents, create posts by selecting the create button on the left, upload photos or videos and give your post a description. Make sure that you keep to Instagram’s recommended dimensions for the images, or Instagram will crop the images and your grid will look messy. Here are the recommended dimensions in 2026:
Landscape: 1080 x 566 px
Vertical: 1080 x 1350 px
Square: 1080 x 1080 px
Stories are a great way to update parents and students who are already following you. To create a Story, click on your profile picture on the home tab, upload an image or video and then post it. Stories only last for 24 hours, but you can add it to a Highlight to keep it displayed on your profile.
Optionally, connect to your Facebook Page, which enables features like cross-posting and ads. In the settings tab under ‘Accounts Centre’ select ‘add account’ and sign into Facebook and it will be connected.
Here are some step-by-step instructions on how to set up a Facebook Page for your school. You can either watch the YouTube video below, or follow the step by step instructions below the video.
Using a Personal Facebook Account
To create a Facebook Business Page for your school, you will need a personal Facebook account to set it up. Don’t worry – the personal account will not be visible to anybody looking at the school’s Facebook page.
PLEASE NOTE!
I really do not advise creating a personal Facebook account specifically to link to your school Facebook page, as Facebook will consider this to be a fake account and may close your account, or prevent you from using Facebook paid adverts in future. Use a genuine Facebook personal account belonging to a member of staff, then add other members of staff to the Facebook Page for your school.
Creating The Page
To set up the business page
Go to the square in the top right corner and then go down to ‘page’.
Once you click on it, you will be redirected to create the page.
Name the page after your school so the page can easily be found.
Give the page a category – I would recommend ‘school’. You can add up to 3 categories
Add in a bio to give people a description of the school. Remember to include the type of school, age range of students, and highlight your school’s strengths and its Unique Selling Point.
Then select Create Page.
Add in your schools information – contact/website/location/opening hours
Using Canva to Create a Cover Image
You will want to add a profile picture and a cover photo so that people can identify your school. You can upload a cover photo directly to your Facebook page, but if the photo needs resizing or you would like to add text to it, you can use Canva to do this. Canva is a free and easy tool to use when creating images for pages like this.
If you open Canva you can search for Facebook cover photo and find a template which will be the correct size, and upload your photo to it. You can easily add text to it if you wish. Or you can use one of the template designs and customize it with your own images. Once your file is ready, name it, click on Share and download it as a Jpeg or PNG file.
Once downloaded go back into your unfinished Facebook page and upload it as your cover image, where you can reposition it to fit the box. You can preview what your page will look like on mobile and on desktop too.
Once you’ve personalised the page, you can see there is an action button, this will give people who view your page a prompt on how to engage with you.
Next it will ask you to connect to Whatsapp. This is because the company Meta that owns Facebook also owns Whatsapp and Instagram. If your school uses Whatsapp you can link it, otherwise press next.
You will then be able to invite friends to follow the page but for your school I would skip this stage.
Completing Your Page
Next you will be given the option to receive marketing from Meta. You can either keep these notifications or turn them off. I would recommend keeping profile notifications on as it does give you any notifications about your profile or you about services available.
Now you can see the page layout and make any changes you would like to by editing the page. If you do, make sure you save them.
Once everything is set up you have the option of posting to your account. You can use this to give out updates on what’s happening in your school. To do this, select ‘what’s on your mind’ or any of the options below.
Now you can see what your page looks like. Anything you post will be visible here. People can interact by liking commenting or sharing your post.
Some extra security you may want to add to your account can be found in the security panel.
To link an Instagram page, open settings and privacy, then linked accounts. Connect account and then log into instagram and it will be connected.
Now your school’s Facebook page is set up and you can post whatever you like!
If you set up a Business Portfolio, you can schedule posts in advance, see the Insights or analytics for your account and place paid adverts. This is covered in a separate video “How to Set up a Business Portfolio in Meta for your School”.
