Instagram Continues Assaulting Snapchat: Now Allowing Brands to Schedule their Posts in Advance

Instagrammers are most likely to follow brands on Instagram with a keen interest. And the best part is, out of those Instagrammers, a whopping 70% are using Instagram to buy products instantly.

“The scheduling and publishing of Instagram content has been the number one request of our 16 million customers,” said HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes

Prior to this, the digital marketers had to contend with the hassle of keeping abreast of the best time to post on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. However, the cat is out of the bag now. Digital marketers and business owners can now schedule their posts officially right from the Instagram API.

The much-belated overhaul has been anticipated by social media managers for quite some time now. The update will allow brands to schedule their posts right from Instagram. Prior, many third-party apps tried to achieve the same thing. But there, they only got so far as to push out a notification to remind the brand when to publish the post. The closest social media managers ever got was to draft the post for later publication.

Sadly, the official support does not extend its barriers for ads, nor does it allow individual users to schedule posts. It is expected that Instagram will allow individuals to avail this feature by the end of the year 2019.

“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.” Ryan Holmes, CEO Instagram

For now, only big brands would glean the privilege of availing this feature. Instagram API is now supporting social media applications, such as HootSuite, Later, and IFTTT to fully access the functionality from within the Instagram API. Instagram Automatic Post Scheduling is also available to all marketing partners of Facebook and Instagram.

“It’s always been very time-consuming to create Instagram posts,” SocialFlow CEO Jim Anderson told TechCrunch. “That’s not necessarily a problem for individual consumers, but when you’re a media company that creates more than 100,000 posts a month, it’s simply impossible to do everything manually.”

This change was introduced as part of the revamp undertake by Instagram’s API. The old Instagram’s API will be deprecated, beginning from July 31^st, 2018. Instagram API of yore is poised to be replaced by the new Instagram Graph API, which will allow users to analyze the Instagram metrics and insights in the form of graphs.

Another interesting feature which came to forth is business discovery, which allows users to view the profile info of other businesses and mentions, which allows business profiles to view posts they’ve been tagged in. It’s only natural that it has taken this long for Instagram to allow scheduled posts, given that the platform has always encouraged sharing photos and videos, keeping in the moment. But now, it was high time for brands to make the best use of this feature.

With the phenomenal use of Instagram that has led brands to excel in enormously different ways, it is time for startups and well-established businesses to embrace this wonderful and most awaited change. If you’re starting out, feel free to contact us and we will aid you in website design and development, or even establishing a brand identity for your brand.