Instagram finally adds post scheduling…kind of

Thomas McMullan Read more January 31, 2018

Instagram has added a feature that lets users schedule posts, meaning you can line up photos to automatically go live at times of your choosing.

Instagram finally adds post scheduling...kind of

The catch? You’ll need a third-party social management tool such as HootSuite, Sprout Social, or one of the other companies that’s Facebook Marketing Partner or Instagram Partner. The move is decidedly aimed at social media managers, so unless you’re using Instagram as part of your business, it’s unlikely you’ll have the tools to schedule photos of yourself.

“The scheduling and publishing of Instagram content has been the number one request for our 16 million customers,” said Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes in a statement. “Now, they can manage large volumes of content, multiple team members and multiple Instagram accounts with ease and security. Hootsuite is excited to partner with Instagram to make this happen.”

Free apps like Tweetdeck have long allowed Twitter users to schedule posts, and Instagram has said it also plans to add scheduling support to non-business profiles by early 2019. Previous tools have sent push notifications, reminding you to post pictures at given times, but the updated functionality is the first move to introduce scheduling to Instagram itself.

As Instagram explains in a blogpost, the change is part of a larger plan to swivel from the older Instagram API platform to the new Instagram Graph API. Amongst the new features are a Business Discovery mode, which lets users view information and media of other businesses. There’s also a feature called Mentions, which lets business profiles view posts they’ve been tagged in.

Scheduled posting so-far only works for photos, not videos. Nevertheless, the move will likely make things easier for social media managers tasked with churning out thousands of posts for companies or ‘influencers’, even if it does mark a shift away from the platform’s emphasis on sharing images in the moment they happen.

(Image credit: HootSuite)