As good as Instagram stories are in keeping your audience actively involved, consistently posting them is a hassle. For marketers, sharing stories manually is another burden over creating and planning.
That’s where Instagram story schedulers come in as a great time-saver. While you focus on ideating and creating compelling stories, a scheduler seamlessly automates the posting process.
Do you know how to schedule Instagram stories?
Scheduling stories on Instagram became possible only a few years back, and still, many brands and marketers are unaware of this automation feature.
In this blog, we will discover ways to schedule Instagram stories with the help of the best scheduling tools in the market. The two most popular ones are:
- Meta Business Suite
- SocialPilot (Third-Party Scheduler)
But before we uncover the scheduling procedure, let’s learn more about the reasons and benefits of scheduling stories on Instagram.
Why Schedule Instagram Stories?
For busy marketers already juggling multiple tasks, scheduling Instagram Stories can save time and help maintain a consistent online presence.
This is because Instagram Stories appear at the top of the Instagram feed and can attract followers, and staying consistent with stories can generate higher engagement and awareness.
To Save Time with Automated Posting
Imagine you are a social media marketer with hundreds of things on your plate every day. In such situations, automating Instagram stories can save you precious time. The whole purpose of automation tools for Instagram is to allow you the time to plan so your stories are well thought out and researched, giving you more time for other productive parts of the job.
To Maintain a Consistent Brand Voice
The rushed and unplanned nature of manual posting can disrupt your content aesthetics and your overall brand voice. On the other hand, scheduling is a strategic choice that helps you reinforce the brand identity, making it easier for your brand to be recognized.
Whether it’s your tone, style, or messaging, when you schedule your stories, you maintain a cohesive vibe of your feed that your audience loves.
To Get Flexibility in Posting
Sometimes, you have an unexpected meeting or might have to travel, and it’s impossible to access your phone, let alone craft a visually aesthetic Instagram story. During such times, scheduling Instagram Stories relieves you from manual sharing at unreasonable hours or when you are busy. You can schedule a story at the most convenient time without the need to be online all the time.
To Remove Last-Minute Errors
If you are a marketer, you must have posted something at the wrong time at least once. Don’t worry; it happens to the best of us. But when you learn how to schedule Instagram Stories, you ensure that nothing goes out without a double-check and that there is no room for last-minute errors. This is how smart marketers minimize the risk of embarrassing mistakes.
These benefits make all the difference when you schedule your Instagram stories. They get you more engagement, views, and presence on Instagram. They also keep your audience interested in your content and connect with you more through stories.
Now, let’s learn how to schedule Instagram Stories using Meta Business Suite in four easy steps.
How to Schedule Instagram Stories with Meta Business Suite?
Compared to SocialPilot Scheduler, it lacks many advanced scheduling features. Still, if you are familiar with the Meta Business Suite, it will be a good method for scheduling Instagram stories for an individual page. Here are four easy steps to schedule Instagram stories using the Meta.
Step 1: Log In to Your Meta Business Account and Click “Create Story.”
Step 2: Upload Media and Select the Profile to Schedule the Story
Step 3: Switch to the scheduling option and pick a suitable date and time
Step 4: Click on the “Schedule” Button
Drawbacks of Scheduling Instagram Stories with Meta Business Suite
If you are a marketer, you must have tried MBS before and might have realized its shortcomings. Though it offers features that help with scheduling, it still falls short in many areas necessary for scheduling Instagram stories.
- It lets you schedule stories for only one month in advance.
- It does not let you schedule GIFs for Instagram Stories; only images and videos.
- It does not allow you to edit the story before scheduling.
- It only allows the scheduling of individual images (one or more) and does not support image layouting or layering.
- It does not allow you to schedule content for tools other than Instagram and Facebook.
This is why you need a third-party schedular that offers these features and more. So, let’s learn how to schedule Instagram Stories with the Best Social Media Scheduling Tool.
How to Schedule Instagram Stories with SocialPilot
SocialPilot is a social media scheduling and management tool that lets you publish and schedule stories directly to your Instagram profile. It fills the void left behind by other tools in terms of features and makes scheduling a breeze. With advanced features such as Customizable Reports, AI Assistant, Image Editor, etc, SocialPilot tops the chart as the best among all.
Here’s how you can schedule Instagram Stories with SocialPilot:
Step 1: Log In to SocialPilot Account
Log in to your SocialPilot account and connect your Instagram profile. Click on Accounts > Connect Account > Connect Instagram Account.
For Instagram, SocialPilot supports scheduling for both Business and Personal profiles; you can connect both and start scheduling.
Step 2: Navigate to Post Composer
Over the dashboard, navigate to the left side panel and click on Posts > Create Posts.
Step 3: Switch to the Instagram Story Tab
Once the “Create Post” window opens, select Instagram as the platform and Story as the content type.
Step 4: Upload Media and Select Account
Now, upload images, videos, or GIFs from your device or SocialPilot. You can export media from your Canva or upload it using Unsplash.
Step 5: Schedule the Story for a Suitable Date and Time
Once you’ve completed everything, you can select your scheduling option and the suitable date and time when you want your story to go live.
Finally, click on “Schedule”, and your Instagram Story will be successfully scheduled.
With this five-step procedure, you can easily schedule your Instagram Stories for any time in the future. If you’d like to do your scheduling over a mobile phone, install SocialPilot’s mobile application for Android or IOS and schedule Instagram Stories for Push Notifications.
This way, when the publishing time is near, you will get a mobile notification, and then you can share it on your Instagram profile with just one click.
Why Schedule Instagram Stories with SocialPilot?
- SocialPilot lets you schedule Instagram Stories on both desktop and mobile.
- It has advanced scheduling features like repeat post, add to queue, etc., which are missing in MBS.
- SocialPilot scheduler supports scheduling on all major social media channels, a plus point that Meta Business Suite does not offer.
- It allows you to schedule a story for any time or date in the future, unlike Meta Business Suite, which allows scheduling only one month in advance.
- SocialPilot also has built-in editing software, allowing you to edit the media, add watermarks, crop images, stickers, and more to your story.
- SocialPilot has approval-on-the-go and team collaboration features. To improve workflow, you can assign different stages of the task to different team members.
- Unlike the complex dashboard of other schedulers, SocialPilot has an easy-to-understand dashboard that streamlines the scheduling process.
Compared to Meta Business Suite or any other tool, SocialPilot stands out as the best Instagram scheduler. The comprehensive capabilities that SocialPilot has can enhance the scheduling experience, making it the best choice for your Instagram Story scheduling.
6 Top Tips to Schedule Instagram Stories
Scheduling Instagram Stories isn’t a huge task when you know the best practices. Here are some of the best ones you must follow to schedule Instagram Stories effectively.
Follow Strategic Timing
Even though Instagram Stories are visible for 24 hours, they should be shared when your audience is most active. Depending on the industry, your active hours can vary; it could be at dawn or in the middle of the night.
A heatmap can help you determine the best time to post on Instagram for your brand to increase your engagement rate.
Once you know your optimal timings, you can schedule your story using SocialPilot Instagram Scheduler to share it on the exact timings.
Maintain Content Calendar
Creating a content calendar will always keep you organized. It is a smart way to plan your stories and ensure they go live at the right time.
When you get into the habit of scheduling Instagram Stories, having a calendar will keep you informed about future schedules. It ensures that your posting schedule is consistent and executed seamlessly. You can stay organized by creating a Content Calendar with SocialPilot.
Want to streamline your Instagram Stories Scheduling?
SocialPilot’s Intuitive Content Calendar can help you visualize all your scheduled stories across weeks or months in one convenient interface. This allows you to stay organized and effortlessly plan ahead of time.
Use Professionally-Designed Templates
With SocialPilot Canva Integration, you get access to professionally designed story templates. Create your own aesthetically appealing stories inside Canva and export them to the SocialPilot scheduler directly while composing the story.
This way, you can save time and maintain a theme throughout the timeline. They make your stories visually appealing and enhance your Instagram stories with minimum effort.
Share Content Variety
Sharing similar and monotonous stories will bore the audience. Give them what they want to see and share an interesting variety of content regularly so they can engage with your stories.
Keep your scheduled stories diverse. Share a mix of educational, inspirational, and promotional stories to capture the audience’s attention effectively. This increases engagement and prevents monotony in your content.
Reshare Feed Posts on Story
Indeed, what works on feed does not work on stories and vice versa. However, keeping your Instagram stories in sync with your feed posting is also necessary.
Having your schedule on a content calendar helps you visualize what your brand is talking about on the feed and then reshare it on the stories to stay relevant at both places. This will maintain consistency across the profile and keep the brand experience cohesive.
Analyze Performance
The primary purpose of scheduling Instagram stories is to boost your online presence. After putting so much effort into automating your Instagram story publishing, you should analyze how scheduling benefited you in a timely manner.
When you schedule Instagram stories with SocialPilot, you get Analytics and Reports on your story’s performance. Based on metrics like reach, replies, tap back, tap forward, exits, etc., you can decide your future strategy.
When you implement these top tips, scheduling Instagram stories becomes seamless. It ensures you never miss a beat when achieving higher reach on your Instagram stories.
The Bottom Line
The analytical results are also positive when you post right on time, keep your stories interesting, align them with feeds, and visualize strategy with a content calendar.
All this is possible only when you use the advanced scheduling features of SocialPilot. You can manage and schedule Instagram stories more effectively and reach your marketing goals by keeping your social media schedule on point.
If you are ready to take your Instagram strategy to the next level, start scheduling with SocialPilot today.
