How to Schedule Instagram Posts in 2021

Why Schedule Instagram Posts

You can save yourself the trouble of losing precious hours every day shuffling through multiple photos, creating captions, and researching hashtags. Instead, you can spend one day scheduling posts for the entire week which will take just 1 or 2 hours of your time.

1. Schedule Instagram Posts to Conserve Energy and Save Time

Coming up with an innovative post and posting it on Instagram requires substantial time investment – this can be daunting, especially if you are required to upload fresh content every day. Time is the most priceless commodity at an organization's disposal; using it wisely ensures long-term success and growth.

Cooking up a post with compelling captions and eye-catching graphics, all in 10 minutes or less, may not seem like a big deal. But this can severely hinder your typical workflow – especially if posting is not your primary task. It may take a significant amount of time for you to get back on track. –At least 25 minutes to go back to what you were initially doing. There go 35 minutes of your precious time that you will never get back.

Multitasking is not only bad for you physically, but your mental state of mind is also affected. Your IQ drops by 10 points when you constantly switch between multiple ordeals.

2. Schedule IG Post to Maintain Consistency

People tend to engage more with the accounts that are consistent when it comes to posting fresh content. Your audience will keep coming back because they are aware of your posting schedule and are sure to receive great content.

The Instagram algorithm also prefers promoting the content of an account that posts frequently - your content will show up in the feed of your followers and also in the explore section, so that new viewers can find your posts. Resulting in more followers and higher engagement from likes and comments. Brands on Instagram posts an average of 1.5 times a day.

Instagrammers also buy Instagram followers, as part of their Instagram marketing strategy. The goal is to get more user engagement for their posts.

3. Schedule Instagram Posts to Have Control over Your Instagram Feed

IG is popular because it presents posts that visually appealing to its audience; being a visual platform, you have to make sure that your entire feed looks vibrant and not just a single post. Whenever a new user lands on your page, you have few seconds to make the best first impression. A famous brand or personality devotes a considerable amount of time in designing their feed.

Scheduling enables you to look at the ‘bigger picture’ before your post goes up on your feed. For example, if you plan to design a feed where the column on the right side of the grid showcases different fonts and colors compared to the left side, then you can schedule appropriate posts that will eventually take up the right spot in the grid at the right time. Also, you can schedule content that is time or date-sensitive to go up at appropriate intervals.

4. Scheduling IG Posts for Optimized Captions

Captions in your post are important. Especially if you want your viewers to take a particular action or if you're going to provide essential details about the contents of your post. Every new post created, comes with the challenge of finding a good caption and optimize it for reach.

You could devote a significant amount of time every day, coming up with new, creative captions. Or you can create multiple captions in one sitting using a scheduler tool. The answer is pretty obvious.

When you are in the zone, with all your creative brain cells running wild - spend some of your time creating captions for the entire weeks’ worth of content.

Also read: How to Use Hashtags on Instagram

How to Schedule Instagram Posts

Change Your Instagram Profile to a Business Account

Conversion of your account to a business profile is essential since the scheduling feature is only compatible with IG business profiles. You can enjoy certain benefits such as access to advanced analytics – a feature not available for a regular profile. Additionally, you can also run ads.

Let us go through a step-by-step process on how you can acquire your business account.

Step 1: On your IG account, navigate your profile and select the menu icon (hamburger) located in the top right corner.

Step 2: Press the setting option located at the bottom of the screen.

Step 3: Next, select the account option in the preceding tab.

Step 4: Press switch to a business account.

Step 5: Press continue until you arrive at the 'Connect to Facebook page' tab.

Step 6: You need to have a Facebook page, so create one even if you never use it. You can also link an existing FB page.

Step 7: For the next step, provide your business details.

Step 8: Press Done.

At the end of step 8, you would have successfully converted your standard Instagram profile to a business account. Note thatIG itself does not provide users any in-built features that enable them to schedule posts on the parent app.

Creators will require access to a third-party application to schedule their posts. For our example, we will use Buffer, but several paid tools work on similar principles - Later, Hootsuite, Socialbu, etc., to name a few.

Schedule Instagram Posts Using Buffer

Before you go ahead and start scheduling your first post, you need to add your newly created Instagram business account to Buffer.

Step 1: Accessbuffer.com to create an account.

Step 2: Next, you need to add your account by selecting Add a New Social Account button.

Step 3: Select the Instagram option from the list and add your IG account.

Step 4: On the next page, provide your details.

Step 5: Press login.

Step 6: To give Buffer access to your profile, tap the green Authorize button.

Step 7: After linking, press the Go to Dashboard button.

Step 8: For automation, set up Direction scheduling so that the Buffer can post automatically. Select 'Yes, let's do it on the following page.

Step 9: You arrive at the Facebook authentication page.

Step 10: Press Continue and authenticate with Facebook, followed by uploading your credentials.

Step 11: Authorize Buffer to post on your behalf by selecting OK in the prompt.

Now, you’re all set to schedule Instagram posts.

Step 1: Select the date and time on which you want Buffer to upload posts on Instagram.

Step 2: Once you arrive on the next page, choose an image you wish to post - pair it with a caption.

Step 3: Press edit to tweak the date and time of post upload.

Step 4: When you are all set, press the Schedule Post button, and voila, you did it.

You have just instructed Buffer to post your content at the specified date and time automatically.

Note: Direct scheduling had certain limitations - this feature only posts images that fall within Instagram's accepted photo dimensions.

When you try to upload multiple images of different ratios, the Buffer won't publish them immediately. You will receive a notification from Buffer on the set date before posting.

Once you receive the notification, you have to upload the post by navigating to the app manually.

While using the free version, you can only add a single profile per platform - there is a maximum limit of 3 profiles. There is no limitation to the number of contents you can upload for the month. However, at a given time, you are allowed to schedule only ten posts.

The paid plans of the Buffer not only eliminate all the above restrictions. But also arm creators with more benefits like advanced Analytics and video assistance.

Also read: How to Make Money on Instagram

How to Plan Instagram Posts

• Select the Right Time to Post

The Instagram algorithm is designed to show the most recent content uploaded between users' successive logins. Hence, the best time to post on Instagram is when most of your followers are active on the platform –this ensures that your posts take the top spot on your user's feed.

You can look at IG insights to know when your audience is most active on the photo and video sharing platform. Accordingly, schedule your posts to gain maximum exposure.

• Do Not Think Too Far Ahead into the Future

The chances of everything things going haywire escalates when you schedule Instagram posts far ahead into the future. You never know what will happen a week, two weeks, or even a month from now. Best to avoid posting something insensitive to prevent gaining a lousy reputation. Immediately pause your posting plans during unexpected circumstances. We recommend keeping the scheduling limit to one week.

• Avoid Spamming

When you schedule Instagram posts, you get more done in a short amount of time while maintaining your quality standard.

But just because you can post with twice the frequency as before, doesn't mean you should. Go for it, only if you can maintain consistency between each successive upload for a long time.

We recommend prioritizing consistency over frequency; doing so ensures a better engagement rate for your content. You are doing yourself no favors by continuously coming up with fresh posts, especially when no one from your audience will get to see them.

• Optimize and Edit Your Post

When you create an eye-catching post, it is always a good practice to take another look at the copy before it goes on your feed. If you have a team that works in cohesion - getting the green light of approval at each stage helps avoid loss in quality.

Like how words are crucial for tweets on Twitter, visuals are the driving factor behind an IG post's success. It will help if you select Instagram post planner that enables you to edit your pictures on the same dashboard that you use to schedule your posts.

• Organize All Your Resources Beforehand

When uploading posts manually, you have to go through many visual resources before you finally make up your mind. But when you enter the professional world, you will soon realize that keeping content well organized in advance, saves a lot of time – a precious resource that can be directed towards something productive.

Each individual has his system of organization. Some use Google drive, well others prefer Dropbox. Some even create folders on their desktop with relevant titles.

When narrowing down on your ideal scheduling tool, make sure to look for one that has in-built features for organizing your resources.

• Analyze Your Posts

Scheduling gives you a bird' eye view of how your post will appear in your feed once they are uploaded. You can even consider conducting a small A/B test to see which posts perform better and which ones fall short of your expectations.

Go Ahead and Begin Scheduling Your Posts

What are you waiting for? You now have all the information you will ever need to schedule Instagram posts. Follow the steps in this article and convert your account to a business account. Next, start planning your posts. You can always refer to this article when in doubt.

I hope you found our article on how to schedule Instagram posts helpful. Do check out more content on our website.

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