Practice has proven that timing plays an important role in achieving success on social media. Be it Facebook or Instagram; you should publish posts when your followers are most active.
But sometimes the odd hours can make it difficult to keep up with the posting schedule. That’s why you should use a tool that helps you schedule your Instagram posts in advance.
And that is what we will look at in this article. So let’s get started now and see how you can schedule Instagram posts.
Convert your Instagram account into a Business Profile
But before we schedule posts, there’s one thing you should know. Scheduling is only available for business profiles on Instagram. So you’ll need to convert your account to a business profile first if you haven’t already.
Here’s how you can do it:
Step 1: Go to the Profile tab on your Instagram account and tap the menu button in the top right corner.
Step 2: Tap the Settings option at the bottom of the menu, then the Accounts option in the next window.
Step 3: Here, tap the Switch to business account option and tap Continue until you reach the Connect to Facebook page.
Step 4: To do this, you need to have a Facebook page. So create one if you haven’t already and then link it to your Instagram account in this step.
Step 5: Verify your details in the next step and tap Done.
And with that, your account will now be converted to a business profile. However, you still won’t find any scheduling options on the app. Well, the problem is that Instagram just enabled scheduling in its API, so you can’t schedule posts using just the app.
You will need a third-party app or software to schedule your posts. I will use Buffer for this article, but there are many other free and paid tools like Hootsuite, Socialbu, Autogrammer, etc that you can use instead.
How to schedule Instagram posts with cache
Before you can start scheduling posts, you need to add your Instagram account to Buffer and then set up Live Scheduling.
Add your Instagram account to the cache and set up a live schedule
Step 1: Visit the Buffer website and create an account.
Step 2: Link your Instagram account to the platform by clicking the Add new social network account button.
Step 3: Select the Instagram option from the following page to link your Instagram account.
Step 4: Enter your Instagram credentials on the following page and click Sign In. Then click the green Authorize button to give Buffer access to your Instagram profile.
Step 5: Once you have linked your Instagram account, click Go to dashboard.
Step 6: Next, you need to set up Live Scheduling to allow Buffer to automatically post on your behalf. Just click Yes in the following website and you will be redirected to the Facebook authentication page.
Step 7: Click Continue and authenticate with Facebook, then enter your Facebook credentials.
Step 8: Give Buffer permission to post to Instagram by clicking OK in the following prompt.
With that, you’re now ready to start scheduling posts using Buffer. So let’s quickly go over that next.
And finally, schedule Instagram posts
Step 1: Click on the date and time you want to schedule the post.
Step 2: In the next page, add the image you want to share and write a caption for the post.
Step 3: Click Edit to adjust the date or time the post will be published.
Step 4: Once everything is ok, just click the Schedule Post button and you are done.
Cache will now automatically publish posts to your feed at a predefined time. However, there are some limitations. Live Scheduling only works for single image posts that fall within Instagram’s acceptable aspect ratio range.
If you use this feature to publish multiple images in a single post, photos with a different aspect ratio, or attempt to publish to a personal account, Buffer will not publish the post directly. Instead, it will send you a reminder at a certain date and time.
The prompt will redirect you to the Instagram app, where you’ll have to manually publish the post. So make sure you stick to the tool’s guidelines.
The free version of Buffer allows you to add one profile per platform, up to a maximum of three. You can only have ten posts scheduled at any given time, but there is no limit to how many posts you can schedule in a month.
If you want more features, you can try one of the paid plans in the free trial window. Paid plans not only remove these limitations, but also provide some additional benefits, like in-depth analytics and support for videos/GIFs.
Start scheduling your Instagram posts
So now that you know how to schedule Instagram posts, what are you waiting for? Switch to a business account and start scheduling right away. Please note that Buffer is not the only tool you can use for this purpose and you can always try other options that provide similar functionality.
Next up: If you regularly use both Facebook and Instagram, then you should check out the following article to learn how to post on both platforms at the same time.
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
