If you’re trying to maintain an active presence on your business’ social media channels, you need to upload regular posts. However, you may find that you have better engagement levels if you post in the evenings or at weekends, or you’ve got a week of annual leaving coming up, and you don’t want to be logging onto Instagram to post some snaps when you’re out of the office.
In the Instagram app, you can create ‘drafts’ of posts to upload at a later date, but these can’t be scheduled – meaning that you’d have to log in at a specific time to make the post, which isn’t ideal. However, there is a way to schedule posts on Instagram by using Facebook – and, like many of Facebook’s handy features, it can be difficult to find but once you know where to look and what to do, it’s relatively easy.
First of all, you’ll need to have a Facebook account, as well as an Instagram one, and you’ll need to make sure the Instagram account is connected to your business’ Facebook page. This is fairly simple to do, and you can do so within the Instagram app itself (note: you’ll need to make sure your Instagram account is a business one, and not set up for personal use).
Once you’re set up correctly, log on to a desktop computer or laptop, and follow these simple steps:
1. Log into https://business.facebook.com/
2. On the left-hand side, you’ll see a dark grey bar with different options. Select the ‘Posts’ option
3. You should now see all of the posts from your business’ Facebook and Instagram accounts. At the top of the screen you should see the following options – select ‘Create Posts’ in the top right-hand corner:
4. The following pop-up box will appear. Here, you can select where you want the post to publish (Facebook, Instagram or both), write your caption, add media (a photo or video is needed for an Instagram post) and more:
5. Once you’ve created your post, click the downward-facing arrow in the bottom right-hand corner, next to the ‘Publish’ button (this will turn blue when you start creating your post). A ‘Schedule Post’ button will appear – select this
6. Another pop-up box will appear, allowing you to select the date and time you want the post to publish. Simply fill in the details, click ‘Save’, and you’re done!
Your post will now be scheduled to Instagram and/or Facebook. To double check this, click on the ‘Scheduled’ button at the top of the screen on the ‘Posts’ tab, which is shown in the screenshot in step three.
Once you know how, it’s an extremely simple process, and it allows you to maintain an active social media presence without having to be present on social media all the time yourself. If you’d like social media post ideas for every day of the year, you can join our Elite Digital Marketing Community on Facebook – it’s free! Alternatively, get in touch if you’d like to learn about our social media management services.
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