Instagram Just Got Easier For Businesses Thanks to this Feature

If your business is active on Instagram, you are well aware of how time-consuming it can be. Creating engaging content, taking eye-catching photography, and getting your posts just right is not an easy task. After all of the work is done, time still needs to be set aside actually to post your content. Diligent social media managers understand that posting on the right day and time can significantly increase your engagement as well as your chances to appear on the explore page. This is especially significant because the Instagram news feed (like most social media channels) is algorithm-based, and does not display posts in chronological order. Instead, posts gain priority based on user habits and by the amount of engagement that they receive.

A big issue that Instagram presented was the fact that there was no way of scheduling posts ahead of time. This means that people had to take time out of their day on the times that Instagram posts were to go out in order to post manually. While there were tools available that would help load posts, not all features were able to be filled in (ex. Location tags, filters), and they would have to be done at the time of the post. Instagram's original policy was against prescheduling posts, as they wanted users to be interacting with the site at the time of posts. Then, users were given the opportunity to at least have content, hashtags, and the photo populated into Instagram, where not much effort was required to send the post. However, this is a big difference compared to other social media channels where posts could be quickly scheduled ahead of time and posted without a second thought.

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Instagram has FINALLY allowed users to schedule posts ahead of time, and businesses are rejoicing! On January 30, 2018, Instagram posted a blog explaining that companies can now plan their Instagram posts with the Instagram Graph API. Instagram also shared a screenshot to give users a glimpse of what that will look like on Hootsuite:

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Scheduling your Instagram posts will be a breeze if you are already using one of the approved partner platforms. A list of approved partners, which includes Hootsuite, SproutSocial, and Social Hub, can be found here.

If your business isn't currently using Instagram in its strategy, now's the time to start! It's easier than ever, and just like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, you can schedule your Instagram posts to go out when they are likely to receive the most engagement.