Instagram is all about sharing your best moments with friends and family. The image-based social media platform isn’t big on letting people schedule their posts. After all, what’s the “Insta” of sharing Sunday night’s amazing soufflé on Monday afternoon?
They have no tools for scheduling shipments within the app, nor do they allow third-party scheduling programs to ship on your behalf. Suddenly your dream of saving time and energy by streamlining your Instagram feed seems hopeless, doesn’t it?
do not give up. There are some ways, if not ideal, to circumvent Instagram’s no-talk no-scheduling policy.
Why Should You Schedule a Post?
The ordinary Instagram user may not need these methods. But someone serious about building an Instagram follower needs more than a phone and the desire to share. They need to treat the platform less as a means of expression, and less as a tool to reach new people and maximize exposure.
- Find out when your audience is most active and post accordingly. So dinner may be ready, but your followers may not be.
- Plan for times when you can’t post on holiday-like enthusiasm.
- If you’re taking a lot of pictures and want to share a few, space them so you don’t overwhelm your audience.
As a result, planning your posts ahead of time can make it much easier to grow your audience and manage your profile.
How to Schedule a Post
Unfortunately, you cannot fully automate the submission. However, there are some social media management platforms that will streamline the process as Instagram allows.
In other words, you can prepare the post, filters, tags and all, and set a time for the post. When that time comes, the third-party platform will send you a push notification with the post you prepared. All you have to do is press a button to send.
Various platforms such as these are available. Some, like TweetDeck, are built for specific social media sites, and some, like Instagram, do not host apps that don’t allow automation.
Using Third-Party Services to Schedule Shipments
That said, the following four social media management platforms are solid options that will let you create and schedule Instagram posts.
- Hoot Suite: This is the most popular social media manager, and for good reason. It will let you manage multiple accounts including Instagram. It also includes a control panel that lets you view other people’s social media content, so you can surf while you plan.
- Buffer: This social media manager is not as comprehensive as the one on Hootsuite. But it does one thing very well: timing. The timing options are more precise, so if you’re looking for more control, this might be the tool for you.
- Later on: This platform is not as well known as the others but is on its way up. Also, Instagram includes some very intuitive useful tools for analyzing your audience.
- tailwind: Although primarily used as a Pinterest timer, it’s also a pretty proficient Instagram scheduler.
We would like to present an “honorable mention” to Picdeck. This tool markets itself as “TweetDeck for Instagram”. However, it doesn’t allow people to schedule Instagram posts yet. That being said, it’s only a matter of time before we get on board.
Save as Draft – Workaround
A great way to organize your Instagram posts is Instagram’s private drafts feature. Creators and artists understand that inspiration can come at any time. It’s true that if you want to increase your popularity on the app, you should publish your content at the perfect time when more people are online and can see it, like it, comment on it and interact with it.
Creating a sketch on Instagram is very easy. Begin your post as if you are sending it right now. Add your images, choose your filters and to mail page.
Add your tags, location and description here (don’t forget your hashtags).
Instead of tapping on the send option, tap the back arrow located in the upper left corner. This will take you back to the filters page, click the back arrow once again and a popup will appear asking if you want to delete the post or save it as a draft.
Faucet save draft. Then continue with your day.
When you’re ready to post (you can use a scheduling app to remind you to post it, just tap the plus “+” icon at the bottom of Instagram’s homepage. Your draft will be stored at the top of your camera roll. Tap it). and keep posting.
If you’re on your way to being impressive but aren’t ready to pay for a service like HootSuite, this workaround takes some effort but is definitely worth it.
When to Schedule a Post
Now let’s get to the last piece of the puzzle. When should you schedule these posts?
According to a survey conducted by the aforementioned Instagram planner Later, more than half of social media managers agree that the best time to post is between 7 PM and 9 PM in the evening. around 11 o’clock. by 1 Finally, they found that the worst time was between 3 pm and 4 pm on weekdays. sounds like off-hours is usually the way to go.
It was then concluded that Wednesday and Thursday were the best days for posting and Sunday was the worst. Another popular scheduling platform, Coscheduler, challenged this by arguing that Monday is a more important time than Wednesday. In both cases it seems Tuesday and Friday just out.
However, these results are not necessarily conclusive.
The truth is, peak post times will vary greatly based on viewers. Adhering to the guidelines above can help a little, but it’s more effective to learn about your target audience and when they will engage with you.
- Determine what time zone your target audience is likely to be in. This may or may not be relevant depending on the target audience.
- Use Instagram’s native analytics tools (and those provided by your planner) to identify peak times for audience engagement.
- Try posting at different times to test audience engagement to make the above-mentioned tools more effective.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach, but some due diligence should get you on the right track. Try to understand your Instagram audience, get to know your planners, and watch out if Instagram decides one day to relax the rules on scheduled posts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Professional Accounts schedule posts and stories?
Just using the methods listed above.
Can I schedule a post on Facebook?
Instagram’s sister site Facebook is giving business accounts the option to schedule posts at a later date and time.
Learn more
Instagram is a great app packed with fun and powerful features. We’ve published a number of great articles to help you get the most out of your Instagram experience.
Tired of seeing someone posting all the time? Read our post to find out how you can block someone on Instagram. Want to know if someone blocked you? Click here!
Having trouble building real followers on Instagram? It’s not easy, but this book can point you in the right direction. Hint: post constantly!
