Connecting TikTok and Instagram accounts

Pamba publishes from physical phones, so posting requires your account to be signed in on a device. This is what makes posts look and behave like a human posted them.

Connecting

Go to Accounts and follow the connect flow for TikTok or Instagram. Depending on your plan, your account is signed in on a Pamba-managed device. Once linked, the account shows as ready and appears as a posting target when you schedule.

Adding an account you already have

You can bring TikTok and Instagram accounts you already own. Choose Connect accounts on the Accounts page, or on an avatar's Accounts tab, and pick how many of each, at the same seat prices as accounts Pamba creates. Each seat then waits as a Ready to connect row; choose Connect on a row whenever you're ready to sign that account in, one at a time. To have Pamba make brand-new accounts instead, choose Create accounts. Changed your mind about a seat? Click its status (Ready to connect or Waiting for username) on the Accounts page or an avatar's Accounts tab and pick Connect an account I own or Create a new account. It is the same seat at the same price, and you can switch until you save its username or start connecting an account.

Enter the account's handle and password. If you sign in with an email or phone number, enter that too. One of your Pamba phones then signs in, which takes a few minutes. TikTok and Instagram often send a verification code to your email or phone at this step. When that happens, Pamba asks you for the code on the Accounts page and by email. Enter it within a few minutes, while the phone waits. If you didn't get a code, choose Send a new code.

Things to know:

• •Accounts that sign in only with Google or Apple need a password first. Add one in the app's settings.
• •If the handle is mistyped, or your login opens a different one of your accounts, the account's card says so. Fix the handle and try again, or choose Connect @name to connect the account your login opened instead.
• •If something else stops the sign-in, Pamba's team finishes it by hand and gets in touch with you about any code it needs. When only you can move it on (approving the sign-in on your own phone, say), the team hands it back: Pamba emails you what to do, and the account's card lets you try again.
• •Pamba changes nothing on the account by itself. It warms the account and posts what you schedule.
• •Only the account you connect is added. If it shares a Meta Accounts Center with other Instagram accounts, Instagram signs those in on the phone too, but Pamba never lists, warms or posts from them. To add one of them, buy a seat and connect it the same way.
• •If TikTok or Instagram later signs the account out of its phone (after a password change, or on its own), Pamba emails you, the account reads Signed out on the Accounts page and on its avatar's Accounts tab, and a warning across the top of the app names it. Choose Reconnect on its card: the phone signs in again with the password you gave (enter the new one if you changed it), and you enter the code the app sends, as when you first connected it. Until then the account can't post or warm: new posts on it are refused, and its scheduled posts fail with a note to reconnect it, so retry them once it is back.

What "ready" means

Ready = the account is signed in on a device that's online and inside its posting capacity. If an account shows as not ready, posts scheduled to it will fail at their slot rather than silently skipping.

Instagram account type: Personal or Creator

An Instagram account is a Personal account or a professional one (Creator or Business). Accounts Pamba creates start as Personal. To make one professional, open the account's Edit profile dialog (from the avatar's Accounts tab, or from the account's own page when no avatar has it) and turn on Professional account: Pamba switches it to an Instagram Creator account. Turning it off switches the account back to Personal. While it is on, the dialog also shows:

• •Category: the profile category Instagram shows under the name. Pamba can set Digital creator, Artist, Musician/band, Blogger, Clothing (Brand), Community, Education, Entrepreneur, Health/beauty, Writer, Personal blog, Product/service, Gamer, Restaurant, "Beauty, cosmetic & personal care", Grocery Store, Photographer, Shopping & retail, Reel creator, Gaming video creator, Social Media Agency, Camera/photo, Computer Company, Makeup Artist or Creator. A Personal account (or one Pamba has not read yet) switched to Creator takes Digital creator unless you pick another.
• •Show category on profile: whether the profile shows the category. A Personal account (or one Pamba has not read yet) switched to Creator starts with it off.
• •Audience countries: which countries the account's audience comes from: All countries, Tier 1 + Tier 2, Tier 1 only or United States only (the info button beside it lists the countries in each tier). Pamba sets it through Instagram's own Minimum age setting: outside the chosen countries Instagram shows the account only to people it knows are 25 or older, so it does not block a country. The phone adds one country at a time, and Instagram takes only about 15 such changes a day on an account, so a bigger change continues by itself the next day: Tier 1 + Tier 2 set from scratch takes three days. A change starts with the United States and then the default of 25, so the account is gated from the first day; until it finishes, the chosen countries not added yet are gated too. A choice saved while a change waits for its next day joins it: the phone still waits for that day. Pamba keeps a record of the setting country by country as the phone confirms each change, so a change that stops partway (a failure, or a restart of Pamba or the phone's controller) keeps every country it finished: the control then reads that choice (partly applied) with how many of its changes are made, and picking it again and saving finishes it. While a change runs, the line under the control says how far it has got. It reads Custom (set in Instagram) for a setting changed by hand in the Instagram app, and Unknown when Pamba has not read it (it reads the setting when it changes it).

Pamba never switches an account to Business: Business accounts can't use most of Instagram's licensed music. An account that is already a Business account (your own brand account, say) shows Professional account on with "Instagram Business account" under it. You can change its category, or turn the switch off to make it Personal; Pamba never switches it to Creator.

Turned off by mistake? Turning Professional account back on while the switch to Personal is still waiting for the phone cancels it, and the account stays as it was. Once the phone has started the switch it can't be cancelled; turn the switch back on after it finishes to make the account Creator (a Business account comes back as Creator, never Business).

The phone makes the change in the Instagram app in the background, like any other profile edit, and the account's Activity shows how it went. A few things to know before you switch:

• •Switching to Creator makes the profile public, and its content can appear in search engines.
• •Switching back to Personal turns off the account's insights.
• •Instagram also turns on stricter filtering for professional accounts, which hides more comments and message requests, when a Personal account switches to Creator.
• •Instagram trial reels need a Creator or Business account with at least 200 followers, so switching is the first step toward them.

TikTok has no such setting in Pamba: its only switch is to a Business account, which limits the account to TikTok's commercial music library.

Instagram + Facebook

An Instagram account Pamba creates for you can get a Facebook account too, for $100 a month on top of its Instagram seat: an Instagram account is $100 a month, with Facebook $200, and a TikTok and Instagram pair with Facebook $300 ($250 for a workspace that kept the TikTok and Instagram pair discount). It is rolling out, so your workspace may not have it yet. Add Facebook when you create Instagram accounts, or later from the Instagram account's row on the Accounts page or its avatar's Accounts tab. For now each phone takes one Facebook account and two Instagram accounts share a phone, so two new Instagram accounts can have one Facebook account between them, and of two you already have on one phone you pick one.

Pamba creates the Facebook account from its Instagram account, with the same name and birthday, and uses the Instagram handle as the Facebook username when Facebook allows it. The two stay linked: your Instagram reels are shared to the Facebook account as they post, and the two accounts share one profile picture, so a new picture on either one shows on both.

The Facebook account has its own Edit profile, on its row on the Accounts page and on the avatar's Accounts tab: change its name, its facebook.com username or its picture there. Facebook allows one name change every 60 days, and only a person's name, so a brand's name is refused.

To post under a brand's name, set up a Facebook Page in the same Edit profile: choose "A Facebook Page", give it a name and a category, and confirm. Pamba makes the Page on the account's phone, which takes a few minutes, and from then on the reels of its Instagram account post to the Page instead of the profile. Setting up a Page changes three things: the Instagram account becomes a Creator account if it was a personal one, the Facebook profile's name, username and picture can no longer be changed from Pamba, and the profile no longer shares its picture with the Instagram account. Pamba can't rename or remove a Page yet, so this can't be undone here for now. Once the account posts as its Page, its Edit profile becomes the Page's: you can change the Page's picture and its bio there. If you keep posting as the profile, you can turn on its professional mode in the same place, which adds followers, public reach and Facebook's creator tools.

Things to know:

• •Facebook can be added only to an Instagram account Pamba created, not to one you connected, and only while its seat is active and the account is on its phone.
• •Cancelling the Instagram account's seat cancels its Facebook account with it, on the same date. You can also cancel the Facebook account on its own and keep the Instagram account.
• •An Instagram account with a Facebook account can't be recreated for now.

Ownership and taking your account off Pamba

TikTok accounts purchased through Pamba belong to you. You can request login and recovery access to manage the account independently, including if Pamba shuts down. See TikTok account ownership and transfer for how to arrange a handover.

Troubleshooting

• •Account signed out on the device: choose Reconnect on its card on the Accounts page; then retry any failed posts.
• •Paused accounts: pausing an account cancels its pending posts and warming activity; resume it to schedule again.
• •Wrong account posting: each scheduled post names its target account explicitly; check the post's account on the Schedule page.