Instagram scheduling is on the way… finally!

Instagram has now found another way to be on the good side with their users. The social platform has again listened to what its users want! This is the beginning of the “on-platform post scheduling”. Are you excited? We are and here’s why:

If you aren’t a brand or an influencer you may not feel the need for this new update, however, I assure you, this is a step in the right direction to making content posting on your platform a whole lot easier. At the moment it has only been rolled out on a few select users, acting as a trial run. Fingers crossed because we are  pretty certain the trial will be successful given its demand, which will then see the roll out (hopefully) before the end of the year. 

 

So what does this mean to Content Creators?  

Content creation has become massively magnified over the last couple of years. So much so, it’s rapidly becoming the go-too career choice for Gen Z (and even potentially younger Gen Alpha) . Many of them vocalising their desire to become a ‘vlogger’ or ‘influencer’ as their career of choice. As the platforms grow and develop, so do the topics, everything from gardening to body positivity, fashion influencing to lego building, they all have one thing in common – trying to pre schedule and plan their content. As one of the most affluent forms of influencing, personal branding, you would expect that social platforms would have a tool to allow scheduled posting however this is not yet the case.  To businesses, in any market, this could mean success on Instagram. Businesses can now monetise from any influencers they work with, whether that be macro or micro influencers! The key aspect however, will be whether the business has matched up successfully with the correct influencer.   

 

How do we believe this will positively impact brands?

If anyone follows an account on a platform like Instagram, you expect content. In the light of Instagram scheduling accounts will no longer need to be manually posting and can schedule content for however long Instagram scheduling allows. Results of this can lead to a maintaining of followers or (hopefully) an increase in followers.  

Another aspect to consider is that Instagram scheduling allows for businesses to post when their engagements are at its best. For example a brand may be based in England but gain lots of engagement that turn into sales in Australia. Having to stay up till 2 in the morning to reach that audience will be a thing of the past. The perfect content creation for brands being that they target the right audience, make engaging content and post at the right time should hopefully see brands increase sales through Instagram. If a brand doesn’t know when best to post then this is the time to experiment!  

 

So will scheduling platforms become obsolete?

There have been ways of being able to have scheduled posts from external softwares such as SocialBee and Hootsuite, but anyone that’s worked on these platforms knows that Instagram has always been a little stubborn on allowing ‘easy’ scheduling. So it will be interesting to see if this update will help these platforms to make their customer experience a little more positive, or if Instagram still maintains control slightly more. Could this save businesses money on their scheduling platforms or will the ease of having everything at a click of a button still win? 

 

Instagram V it’s competitors

Updates such as these are important as it steps up the competition for other social platforms to follow suit, and for once Instagram seems to be doing something off its own back (rather than copying a certain other platform). One thing Instagram is making clear with all the new updates is that, as a platform it wants to be staying in line with its biggest competitor, TikTok. 

Tiktok is yet to update their platform to allow users to have scheduled posts natively therefore we would expect this in the next year or so in order to stay ahead. If you weren’t aware, you can now schedule TikToks to be posted via some scheduling platforms such as ‘Later’ or ‘Sprout’. However, there is no in-app feature that currently allows you to do this. 

Instagram is leading the change.. Other platforms such as Snapchat don’t allow users to schedule their posts in-app. Should this be a successful update, I have no doubt they will follow suit. 

Let’s keep our eyes peeled, these platforms aren’t shy of a little copy and paste here and there. For example, Snapchat has recently been adding in new features for their Snapchat plus users such as the user dictating how long a ‘story’ can be published for. This will allow businesses to create more organic content that can educate or sell to their audiences.. With Meta still being the number one worldwide platform with ‘more than 2.89 billion monthly active users’ A scheduling tool will be a healthy addition to the success of the platform. 

One main good reason that this update puts Instagram in a positive light, is that for the first time in a while, it seems to be doing something to help their users rather than hinder (maybe asking for a little forgiveness from the whole Instagram Reels format). However, trends can change at the speed of light and what may be popular at the moment, may not be so popular when it’s time for posting, something to bare in mind in helping your platforms to try and gain the best engagement.

So the next question to ask is ‘what will this do to the algorithm?’ 

Well at the moment we don’t know. Instagram seems to enjoy making their users sweat seeing as the algorithm is changed and updated every few months, as users or to those using Instagram on a commercial basis, we just need to hold onto our hats. It might be a case of experimenting. Seeing what works, seeing what doesn’t in hopes of Instagram not introducing a change to the algorithm in the following update. The key aspect we need to look out for is whether scheduled posts have any difference to natively posted content. Despite not knowing, it will be something we advise  businesses should look out for within their analytics.  

Final thoughts:

If you are a content creator or a busy brand that never finds the time to post, the scheduling update may be a bit of a dream for you. 

Days and nights of staying up to post content when engagement is at its highest are in the past now…well, until Instagram crashes and the post doesn’t go out on time!

Author: Emily Parr – Social Media Team