Scheduling your Instagram posts in advance is the easiest way to save time on the platform so that you can focus on what matters.
Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or the head of a multinational team, the more complex your Instagram marketing efforts are, the more helpful a scheduling tool becomes. That’s because consistent, high-quality content is easier to plan, craft and share when some of the grunt work has been automated.
Of course, everyone has a complex Instagram marketing strategy these days, which means there are a lot of considerations that go into choosing an Instagram scheduling tool. Do you use a business or creator profile? Do you need to schedule Stories? What about video, and IGTV? And what level of detail do you need from your analytics?
In this article, we’ll go through the best Instagram scheduling options for business, creator and regular (a.k.a. personal) accounts, so that you can spend more time focusing on your greater goals.
If you have a business or creator profile on Instagram, you can use Facebook’s native Creator Studio to craft and schedule your posts from your computer desktop.
For influencers with creator accounts, Creator Studio is actually the only place you can schedule your posts. Instagram designed this tool with influencers in mind, which means that its free, no-frills features are focused on ease of use for growth-oriented pros.
On the other hand, if you’re a brand with a business account — or simply a power user looking for some extra time-saving “frills” — you can choose between Creator Studio and any number of third-party tools with more robust, long-range features. (If this is you, skip to the next section.)
Follow these steps to use Creator Studio as an Instagram scheduler:
Head over to Creator Studio and follow the prompts (or use Facebook’s instructions) to link your Instagram to Creator Studio.
The steps will differ if your Instagram account is already linked to a Facebook page or not.
Once you’re all set up, click the Instagram icon in the top bar, then click create post. Then click Instagram Feed.
Note that you also have the option to post to IGTV: here’s a separate guide on how to schedule your IGTV videos.
Now that you’re building your post, you can select a photo to upload as a post to your feed. (You can upload many and make a carousel post, and you can also upload video).
To do so, click the blue Add Content link in the grey box, and choose a file to upload (or else select a photo from Facebook to share.)
This is a good place for us to mention that there’s no content library in Creator Studio, so you won’t be able to store or manage your visual assets or templates here. (Depending on your workflow, this could be a massive inconvenience or a negligible one.)
Now do your usual magic: write a good caption, use the right hashtags (up to 24 of them), tag relevant accounts (up to 30), and add your location.
You can use emojis, too, of course.
Now it’s time to schedule. In the lower right corner, click the arrow beside the blue Publish button, and select Schedule. (You can also click Publish Now or Save as Draft.)
Be warned that Creator Studio won’t give you much guidance as to the best time to post. You’ll want to check your own Instagram analytics to see when your audience is online, or read our industry-by-industry guidelines on the best time to post to Instagram.
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