Instagram scheduling tools are a comforting arrangement to schedule Instagram posts.
Instagram has matured as a powerhouse social marketing tool for commerce, acknowledgments to its highly engaged audience. Instagram internal data found that 90% of users follow a company on Instagram. However, with increased popularity comes fierce competition.
Significant Benefits of Scheduling Instagram Posts
- Increase workflow efficiency: Schedule a complete content calendar at once as opposed to every day.
- Increase post engagement: Rather than publishing delayed or at random times, you can schedule your content to share during peak user engagement.
- Create brand awareness: Scheduling content guarantees a consistent posting cadence, which means more possibility for Instagrammers to see your posts.
How to Schedule Instagram Posts
- Strategize Your Content Buckets: The goal is to build a foundation of different topics that align with your business to manage your Instagram network fresh with consistent and exciting stuff.
- Settle on an Instagram Aesthetic: When it gets to your Instagram feed’s visual appearance, adherence and consistency are paramount for profit. For Instagram, aesthetic applies to your business profile’s overall look-and-feel or the “spirit” that your content samples.
- Curate Your Media Assets: These can be graphics, photographs, videos — or an aggregate, depending on your aesthetic. To ensure you capture all the essential photos and videos, build a shot-list based on your content buckets before any media shoots.
- Visually Design your Instagram Feed: Visually designing your Instagram grid before scheduling your posts lets you see how your feed will view in advance. The best approach is with a visual Instagram planning tool — often incorporated as a feature within Instagram Schedulers.
- Optimize Your Captions and Hashtags: For optimal execution, it’s best to hold your Instagram caption to two-to-three lines of text. Relevant and branded hashtags should also be incorporated in your caption to enhance searchability and brand awareness.
- Ascertain the Best Times to Post on Instagram: The best technique to determine when you should schedule Instagram content for your market is to look at your Instagram Insights.
- Locate and Use the Best Instagram Scheduler: Instagram doesn’t allow in-app scheduling. Instead, businesses must utilize an Instagram post scheduler.
Below are a few Instagram scheduler tools — including assessments of top features focusing on supporting direct scheduling to Instagram.
Later
Later, trusted by 4M subscribers, it is most popularly recognized as a visual Instagram marketing platform for creatives. Later’s programming, scheduling, and publishing features enable you to auto-publish single-image and video posts to Instagram. You can also compose your first Instagram comment to keep your captions organized and visually plan out your Instagram grid before going live.
| Pros | Cons |
| Search, Analytics, and Repost features possible for free accounts. | Cannot upload/publish directly to Instagram. |
| Can schedule Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter posts. | A shared calendar and other features require a paid subscription. |
| Visual and interactive calendar. | Captions are not copied over to the actual Instagram post. |
| Can upload photos from Dropbox and Google Drive. |
Tailwind
Tailwind’s Instagram retailing interface may not look as aesthetically pleasing as Later, but it delivers what it needs in “curb appeal” in “smart” features. The platform distinguishes itself as an intelligent Instagram marketing assistant for outlining and scheduling Instagram posts. For example, tailwind extends Smart.bio — a link in bio tool that implements a free branded landing page for an automated link updating and shoppable Instagram feed. You can also program Instagram posts automatically during peak engagement times utilizing its SmartSchedule feature.
| Pros | Cons |
| Direct publishing (Completely automated) | No Android app yet |
| Post analytics, Best time to post | |
| Includes Pinterest, Chrome add-on | |
| Multiple accounts, iOS App | |
| Drag and drop calendar |
Agorapulse
You’ve heard of Agorapulse as a dominant social media tool. It does a fabulous job scheduling Instagram posts through its mobile app, but it goes past that. For every social network added to this app, you get separate tabs labeled Inbox, Listening, Publishing, Fans & Followers, and Reports. For example, the Listening section allows you to search for a hashtag and observe its activity. Reports give you a comprehensive chart of your profile’s statistics, including likes and followers. You can even add automated rules to mediocre comments and mentions.
| Pros | Cons |
| Advanced analytics | Nothing really |
| Supports Instagram video auto-publishing | |
| Republish option | |
| Visual calendar (weekly/monthly) |
Hootsuite
Hootsuite has been almost for more than a decade and got 18 million customers to register for it. Hootsuite is a social media administration platform holding all the leading social channels. When it develops to Hootsuite’s Instagram tools, you can map, schedule, report, and publish content directly to your Instagram Business Profile from the desktop and mobile app. You can also watch social conversations, bulk schedule content, and follow post-performance.
| Pros | Cons |
| Bulk scheduling. | Only 30 scheduled posts at the moment is provided for free accounts. |
| Auto-schedule feature | The calendar design of scheduled posts is not possible for free accounts. |
| User-friendly web and mobile app interface. | |
| Real-time analytics. |
Onlypult
Onlypult publishes programmed posts directly to Instagram. It may increase concerns for users who value their privacy and security since it’s unclear how Onlypult can achieve what other tools can’t. Nevertheless, the device has been around for a few years now, and that’s enough motivation for all to believe that they’re in trade with Instagram’s Terms and Conditions. In extension to direct Instagram publishing, you can also pursue your audience engagement, comments, and likes from the Onlypult dashboard. Instagram features like uploading multiple images and implementing filters are also present in this tool.
| Pros | Cons |
| Posts are published straight to Instagram. | It is a paid service. |
| Upload images from PC or URL. | No mobile app is available |
| Upload single or multiple images. | Works only with a public Instagram account |
| Calendar view with large thumbnails. | |
| Auto-delete posts after publishing. |
Buffer
Buffer has been one of my popular free social media management accessories for a while now. It has also recently attached a schedule for Instagram. To schedule and distribute Instagram posts, you have to install the Buffer mobile app and know when to publish. It would help if you upgraded to view your scheduled posts in a visual journal; otherwise, scheduled content emerges as a list on a feed.
| Pros | Cons |
| The free plan allows scheduled Instagram posts (10 at a time). | Access to a visual calendar requires an upgrade to a paid plan. |
| Real-time analytics on individual posts. | |
| Re-Buffer option for recycling old posts. |
Conclusion
With all the above options, you have the potential to boost your Instagram engagement considerably. But, first, you must select whether you need simple scheduling reminders or higher publishing techniques.