Overview

In Khoros Marketing, regional targeting (sometimes called “geolocking”) is only available for paid/sponsored Instagram content (ads). If you schedule an organic Instagram post, you can publish it to the account’s followers, but you can’t restrict delivery to a specific country/region.

In ads terminology, a “dark post” generally refers to paid-only ad content (not an organic scheduled post).

This distinction exists because geographic restrictions for delivery are part of Meta’s ads targeting (configured on an Ad Set), while the Instagram Graph API used for organic publishing supports location tagging (a visible location label) but does not provide a country/region audience-targeting parameter.

Solution

1. Confirm which type of content you’re trying to publish
   • Organic scheduled Instagram post: a normal post scheduled/published to the account.
   • Paid/sponsored Instagram content (ad): promoted/sponsored content delivered based on Meta ads targeting.
2. If you need Italy-only (or any region-only) delivery, you must use an ad
   • Create or use a Meta ads Ad Set whose targeting includes the desired geographic locations (for example, a country list such as IT for Italy).
   • If your organization publishes Instagram ads from Khoros Marketing, you can publish the ad from Khoros and select the pre-configured Campaign/Ad Set that contains the geographic targeting:
     1. Click Create and select New Post.
     2. Click Paid at the top of the publishing window.
     3. Select your Ad Account.
     4. Select the Instagram account (or Page) the ad will be associated with.
     5. Select the target Campaign and Ad Set.
     6. Click Send to Channel.
   • If the Ad Set does not already include the right location targeting, update the Ad Set’s targeting in Meta’s ads tools and then use that Ad Set when publishing.
3. If you’re publishing an organic scheduled Instagram post
   • Country/region “geolock” is not available for organic scheduled posts.
   • If your goal is to show a location label on the post (not restrict delivery), use location tagging when publishing directly to Instagram:
     1. In the publishing window, open the Instagram options and click Location.
     2. Start typing to search, then select one of the suggested locations.
     3. Note: location tagging is only available for posts that are published directly through the Instagram API; it is not available for posts that publish through the mobile handoff workflow.

<supportagent>

Support cue: if the customer says “dark post” for Instagram, clarify whether they mean an ad (paid) or an organic post. In Khoros ads terminology, “dark” ads are paid-only and targeting is controlled at the Ad Set level.

</supportagent>

References

• Guide to Ads (Khoros Marketing)
• Ads: Key Concepts (Khoros Marketing)
• Guide: Paid Facebook publishing (includes Instagram)
• Publishing directly to Instagram (location tagging)
• Organic publishing capabilities per social channel
• Meta Business SDK for PHP (Ad Set targeting with geo_locations example)
• Instagram Graph API: IG User Media (shows location_id as a tag parameter)