Very exciting news! You can now schedule posts (photos and captions) on Instagram from your desktop or mobile device and have them published on Instagram automatically.
We used to be able to schedule Instagram posts using a third party application like Hootsuite, Tailwind or Later but until NOW (February 1, 2018) these scheduled posts would not show on your Instagram account automatically. Instead, you would receive a notification on your phone telling you to post scheduled content to Instagram. Confusing? Yes. Especially when you are used to scheduling content on Facebook.
Why would you want to schedule content anyway?
If you have a content strategy you can be a social media ninja and group your content: for example, Tip Tuesday, Community Friday and so on. Scheduling your content allows you to dedicate a block of time to creating and scheduling your social media posts, and then having that platform (Facebook or Instagram) post to your accounts automatically. This allows you to enjoy a consistent online presence even if you are doing something completely different at the time of the post, like lounging on the beach or skiing.
To schedule a post on Facebook, we suggest doing it right on Facebook as it allows you to schedule “fancy” posts like slideshows and videos.
Read 8 Tips for Using Facebook Scheduled Posts – Social Media Examiner
BUT HOW DO I SCHEDULE POSTS ON INSTAGRAM?
Easy! Go to Hootsuite, create an account or login (you can also use Tailwind, and other companies will offer this option soon we’re sure). Write a post, schedule it, and Voilà!
Hootsuite’s online guide is quite comprehensive. Read steps to set up the direct posting option. However, you can simply follow the pop-ups when you schedule a post.
Once your account is set up to enable direct publishing, follow these steps from Hootsuite:
Craft your next Instagram post in the full-screen Composer (Beta) and see a preview of your post before sending. If you currently have single-photo posts scheduled to your business profile, they will publish directly to Instagram at the scheduled time. EASY 🌸
NOTE ✨ To publish videos to business profiles and photos to personal profiles, continue using the Instagram notification workflow. Instagram requires these posts to be published via the Instagram app on a mobile device. So when you send or schedule a post from Hootsuite, a reminder notification is sent to your Hootsuite mobile app when the post is ready to publish. From the notification, you can easily publish the post via the Instagram app.
TROUBLESHOOTING
We tried this the minute it was announced and it worked like magic… for one account. As an agency, we manage several accounts. This is the error message we received: This organization already owns this social network. IT WOULD NOT LET ME SET UP ANY OTHER ACCOUNTS.
We reached out to Hootsuite and this is what they told us:
I would ask you to go to https://www.instagram.com/ and log out of any active account and go back to the Hootsuite dashboard and reconnect the other Instagram account by following the steps shown here in this article http://ow.ly/375Q30i7rab . Please note you have to follow this same process for every Instagram profile you have added to your Hootsuite account.
📲 This DID NOT make much sense to us so this is what we did:
1. We logged out of the accounts on Instagram (on my phone).
2. We removed all the accounts from Hootsuite.
3. We added the Instagram accounts back in Hootsuite and followed the steps that came up to allow direct publishing.
Try it out and let us know how it goes! Remember, Keep it Simple.
Much love, Catherine & Heather 💋
Follow Catherine on Instagram @catherineaird