Publish and schedule posts

Post to Instagram from Content — now, or at a time you choose. Useful mostly because it means writing a week of posts in one sitting rather than remembering to open Instagram every morning.

What you can post

Steps

1. Open Content and click Create a post.
2. Pick the type, and add your photo or video. A carousel takes several.
3. Write the caption.
4. Either publish now, or set a date and time — and check the timezone beside it, which is the field people get wrong.
5. Save. A scheduled post sits in the list until its time and goes out unattended.

Writing captions that work here

• First line is the whole game. Instagram truncates the rest behind "more", so the hook has to survive on its own.
• Say what to do next. "Message us to order" gets messages; a caption that trails off gets likes. Those messages arrive in Instagram Direct.
• Put hashtags at the end, and keep them relevant rather than numerous.
• Expect questions in the comments. Have moderation on, or plan to check them.

Scheduling

• The account must still be connected at send time. A post scheduled against an account that later disconnects will not go out. See Connect your Instagram account.
• Set the timezone first. Everything else on the form depends on it, and a post scheduled in the wrong one goes out in the middle of somebody's night.
• You can edit or delete a scheduled post from the list up until it publishes.

How it performed

Insights show reach over time, followers, and profile views for the connected account.

What to read into them:

• Reach is how many people saw it. The number to watch post to post.
• Profile views means the post made people curious enough to look you up — usually a better signal of intent than a like.
• Followers moves slowly; judge it monthly, not daily.

The thing worth tracking that Instagram will not tell you is how many DMs a post produced. Look at Instagram Direct in the day after posting — that is the number that turns into business.

If something goes wrong

• "Reconnect it to publish". The account has disconnected. Fix it on Instagram accounts — scheduled posts will go out afterwards, but only if they have not already passed their time.
• The video was rejected. Instagram is stricter about video than photos — aspect ratio, length and format all have limits. Try a standard MP4 in a vertical ratio.
• A scheduled post did not go out. Check the account was connected at that time.
• The post published at the wrong hour. The timezone.
• A carousel published with images in the wrong order. They post in the order they were added; reorder before saving.

Next

That is the Instagram channel. For the WhatsApp side, start at Send your first broadcast, or see How pricing works for what all of it costs.