How to Schedule Instagram Posts: 3 Easy Methods

Stop the Scramble, Schedule Your Gram!

Scheduling is your secret weapon to win against the scrambling for last-minute Instagram posts. This blog will show how to schedule Instagram posts using the native Instagram app, Meta Business Suite, and a secret social media management tool. 

PS: There is a bonus waiting for you in this blog. So, take your time and dive into this guide to unlock the secrets of Instagram growth.

Let’s start by asking a question…

Can you schedule Instagram post?

Yes, you can!

Anyone with a Business or Creator Instagram account can schedule their posts, as personal profiles do not have direct access to scheduling features within Instagram. You can use Instagram’s native feature, Meta Business Suite, or third-party scheduling tools to schedule your posts. 

Why You Should Schedule Your Instagram Posts?

Before moving on to the steps for scheduling Instagram posts, let’s walk you through why you should schedule your Instagram posts. It’s no secret that Instagram is booming and demands a lot of attention; this attention can be strategically planned.

That’s right! Scheduling posts on Instagram allows you to plan your months of calendar smartly, and other key benefits of scheduling Instagram posts are as given:

• Saves Valuable Time: A very well-known benefit of scheduling a post on Instagram is that it saves time. Even though this is a very common benefit of scheduling practices, it is necessary because, rather than manual labor, when you move onto automation, you are able to manage things better, and that frees up your time for other aspects.
• Cohesive Feed Planning: In this age of everything aesthetic, you are expected to be on point with how you make your Instagram feed look. Having a cluttered feed is no more an excuse and can put your brand value to a question. Scheduling social media posts allows you to align each of them together for a cohesive appearance before you go live.
• Avoid Last-Minute Rush: Every social media manager has experienced the last-minute rush when it is time to share a post, but they forget. Scheduling Instagram posts can help get away from this daily hectic dilemma. It ensures that the content goes up on the feed for the time you are not active. This pays back the hard work consistently.
• Schedule from Anywhere: Every social media manager has the privilege of working anytime (because they have to, duty calls), but scheduling from desktop and mobile is also a privilege. With the SocialPilot mobile application, you can schedule posts from anywhere at any time and sit back and relax.
• Enhance Performance Analysis: Analysing the social media performance when you know you have not given your 100% does not make any sense. It means something when you have carefully planned a month of content. This is what scheduling posts on Instagram do; it enhances your performance analytics, allowing you to troubleshoot for future planning.

How to Schedule Post on Instagram App?

Professional accounts on Instagram can use the Instagram mobile application to schedule their Posts, Reels, and Carousels. It is an easy way to schedule your tweets while on the go.

Let’s break down the steps:

1. Open your Instagram mobile application and tap on the “+” icon to upload your Post or Reel.
2. Edit your Post or Reel as usual, using the inbuilt editing feature of Instagram, and tap on the next.
3. In the caption window, locate the “Advanced Settings” option and tap on it.
   
4. Toggle on the “Schedule Post” option.
5. Select your desired date and time for the post to go live.
6. After adding the time and date, tap on “Back (←)” and tap “Share.”
   

You can view and make edits to your scheduled posts by navigating to the “Schedule Content” section within your account’s “Settings and Privacy” menu.

How to Schedule Instagram Posts Using Meta Business Suite

If you have an Instagram business account, then you can use Facebook’s Meta Business Suite to craft and schedule Instagram posts.

Follow these steps to schedule your Instagram posts using Meta Business Suite.

1. Go to Meta Business Suite and log in to your Facebook account.
2. Click on “Create Post”.
   
3. From the ‘Post to’ box, select ‘Instagram.’
4. Upload your media and preview the post on the right-hand side of the screen.
   
5. Scroll down to the scheduling options and Select ‘Schedule.’
6. Enter the date and time as per your requirement.
7. Click on ‘Schedule’.
   

Now, you know how to schedule a post on Instagram using Meta Business Suite. However, the Meta Business Suite may not be sufficient if you’re looking for advanced features like collaboration, bulk scheduling, and more.

That’s where third-party tools like SocialPilot come into the picture. SocialPilot’s comprehensive social media management tool offers advanced features to manage and schedule your social media content across multiple platforms, including Instagram.

So, if you’re an individual, brand, or agency handling multiple Instagram accounts, SocialPilot is the perfect tool to streamline your social media management and take your Instagram strategy to the next level.

How to Schedule Instagram Posts Using SocialPilot

When you have a great marketing strategy to execute that requires you to post cross-platform, it is convenient to use a third-party Instagram scheduling tool like SocialPilot.

SocialPilot goes a step further in Instagram scheduling and allows you to create content drafts by directly uploading files from Google Drive. It also enables hassle-free automated posting with advanced functionalities. You can schedule feed posts, reels, carousel posts, Instagram stories, and Instagram ads using SocialPilot.

Before we see a step-by-step process of seamlessly scheduling an Instagram post, sign up on SocialPilot and start your free trial (no credit card details required!) and follow the steps with us as we proceed.

Let’s dive in.

Step 1: Connect your Instagram Profile

First things first, you need to log in to SocialPilot and connect your Instagram Business account by clicking on “Connect Business.”

Step 2: Create Post

Once the accounts are connected, go to the “Create Post“ option in the SocialPilot sidebar. You can create a draft for all platforms or customize it for a particular platform.

You can also use SocialPilot’s AI Assistant to generate post captions and hashtags at lightning speed. Even if you’re experiencing a creative block, this tool has got you covered. With its Instagram-specific prompt templates and tone preset, you can churn perfect captions in seconds.

You can also experience the power of AI Assistant right at this moment. Simply hop over to our Instagram caption generator, give it your topic, select a tone, and watch it whip up captivating captions that keep your audience engaged and drive them to take action.

Now, let’s come back to the steps. Since we are scheduling post for Instagram, select the Instagram icon beside the original draft.

You can customize your post by selecting “Post,” “Story,” or “Reel.” With SocialPilot, you can directly schedule all formats of content directly without any mobile reminders for business Instagram account.

To further enhance your post, you can use advanced features like:

1. Image Editing: Use the built-in editor to fine-tune, crop, or apply filters to your images before publishing.
2. Creating Social Media posts using Canva: You can also go more creative by using Canva integration and export the designed posts directly to SocialPilot.
3. Adding a custom field: You can create account-specific fields to automatically add any preset information (franchise address, legal disclaimer, tagline, hashtags, etc.) to your captions.
4. Instagram post first comment: Keep your image caption clean and clear by putting your hashtags in your first comment.
5. Location Tagging: To expand your reach further, you can tag a target location for your post.

Step 3: Select Account and Scheduling Post

After customizing your post, it’s time to select the Instagram account.

On the right-hand side, you can see the list of accounts. Select the Instagram accounts where you want to publish your post.

As a marketer, you must manage multiple social media accounts for the same clients.

Your post is created, and the accounts are selected; now, all that is left is to schedule this post.

Enter the date and time when you want your post to go live, and click “Schedule.”

And that’s not all,

You can also schedule social media post for your personal profile by linking it to SocialPilot. You’ll receive a push notification on your phone via the SocialPilot app for your posts exactly when you have scheduled them for.

How to Schedule Instagram Posts in Bulk [Upto 500 Posts]

As a social media marketer, you have to deal with multiple things like events, campaigns, product launches, etc. Naturally, you’d have already planned a month’s posts in a spreadsheet to be published. In that case, scheduling posts individually would be a hassle.

Lucky for y’all, using SocialPilot’s bulk schedule feature lets you schedule up to 500 Instagram posts simultaneously.

Let’s break down the process of scheduling multiple Instagram posts at once with bulk scheduling using SocialPilot.

Step 1: Upload your CSV file

Bulk scheduling is as easy as drag-dropping your CSV file.

Step 2: Review your Posts

Before publishing, it’s better to check again at the last minute for any errors in the posts.

Thereby, after uploading your CSV file, you’re directed to the preview page.

You can review all of the posts alongside their images and text content. You can make any required changes here.

Now, click the “Select Account“ button on the top right.

Step 3: One Click to Do the Trick

One final step, click “Schedule Posts.”

Your posts are all scheduled and ready to be published once their time comes.

By scheduling Instagram post with SocialPilot in advance, you will:

• Save time by automating the tedious process of manual posting.
• Utilize that extra time by having brainstorming sessions to create campaign strategies.
• Be able to make high-quality posts that resonate with the audience.
• Come up with solid captions that perfectly match your content in a snap with AI assistant.
• Have time to think of solid captions that perfectly match your content.
• Interact with your audience in the extra time to form a connection with them.

As a result, almost all of the pro-marketers schedule Instagram post using third-party tools like SocialPilot.

Now, let’s come back to the steps. Since we are scheduling posts for Instagram, select the Instagram icon beside the original draft.

Tip for Scheduling Instagram Posts

You know how to schedule posts on Instagram now. You can finally sit back and let the tool do the publishing, right?

Not quite.

You can’t line up posts on the calendar ahead of time and expect your Instagram to flourish automatically. You need to keep a few things in mind if you want your Instagram account to prosper.

But what are they?

Don’t worry! We have curated a list of best practices and tips for Instagram scheduling for you guys.

1. Find Your Best Time to Post on Instagram

Creating quality content and scheduling your Instagram post won’t fetch you any engagement if you publish them when your audience is inactive. You must post when your audience is most active to engage with your post.

Using SocialPilot’s Followers Online Activity in Analytics, you get a heat map that analyses the average number of followers active at each hour and day of the week in the given time range to provide you with the best time to post on Instagram.

You can even access the analytics of several Instagram accounts using the advanced reports feature. This will allow you to combine the analytics of multiple social accounts so you can track them from one place.

2. Keep a close eye on Content Calendar

As mentioned earlier, don’t schedule your content and forget about it. There may be times of crisis, or your content may not align with the current social space scenario.

In such cases, you should pause your Instagram scheduling and rethink.

With SocialPilot, pausing scheduled posts is as easy as clicking the pause icon of the account in Manage Accounts.

3. Don’t Bombard with Content

The benefit of scheduling Instagram posts is that you can increase the number of your posts without sacrificing their quality.

But that doesn’t mean you over-schedule your posts. If you increase your number of posts per day, your engagement will decrease. The reason for this is you are bombarding your audience with content without giving them time to engage with it.

If you have less than or equal to 1K followers, then the optimal number of posts is twice per day. But if you post more than that, your followers will have zero time to interact with your content.

And with so much content and no time to interact, your audience will be annoyed and probably unfollow you.

Remember, it’s not the number of posts that counts. What counts is how many people interact with that post. Give your audience a breather to interact with your content.

So try not to be spammy.

4. Pay Attention to Your Captions

Even if Instagram is a visuals-focused platform, captions are equally important and deserve the attention you pay to your image posts. However, writing captions in bulk can become difficult and draining after a point of time.

In case of writer’s block, the best way to craft an effective Instagram caption within no time is to use AI caption generators. Nowadays, AI writing assistance can be utilized to create hundreds of copies at once. Other than creating, you can also repurpose and translate your well-performing captions saving you a ton of time.

5. Consider Keywords for Content

If you are going about, marketing your business on Instagram, it’s very important that you show up on the search results of your target audience. Alas, Instagram is the new Google Search for Gen-Z.

To make your posts search-optimized, add relevant keywords to your captions. This is similar to adding hashtags, which is also a given.

6. Tag Other Profiles

It is a very good idea to tag other Instagram profiles to your posts, as it gives a considerable boost to your content. Firstly, it brings in engagement by drawing attention to specific individuals or brands, and fostering interactions and discussions. It also boosts the reach of your posts, as tagged users’ followers may discover the post, leading to increased visibility and potential followers.

Overall, tagging users on Instagram posts is a powerful tool for building relationships, amplifying content reach, and fostering a sense of community within the platform.

Third-party Instagram schedulers like SocialPilot have the ability to add tags to their posts before scheduling them. So you can publish readily-optimized content on the go.

Conclusion

You need to start scheduling if you want to build a better presence on Instagram and free up more time in your busy day.

While it may appear straightforward, making the most of Instagram scheduling requires understanding the analytics of your Instagram account and how to engage followers effectively.

With the above tips and tools like SocialPilot, you can do just that and so much more!

So, what are you waiting for?

Get Set Schedule!