Instagram is the main social media platform we use, as a B2B marketing agency, to build awareness about what we do as business owners and promote our expertise as marketers. Instagram is a great social platform for promoting visual content to sell your products or services, which we do on behalf of our clients on a regular basis. While it is important to capture moments as they happen, you also need the ability to schedule some of your content ahead of time, especially when you will be busy in a client meeting or hosting a workshop (more on that later). But how do you make life easier by scheduling posts ahead of time rather than dropping everything to post in real time?

There are a couple of useful tools to help you get organized and schedule you Instagram content ahead of time that will notify you when its time to make the post live. With that said, it is important to note that Instagram's API is "closed" meaning that they don't allow other apps to build on their platform. Instagram's API Terms of Use state: "Use the Instagram APIs to post automated content to Instagram, including likes and comments that are not initiated and entered by an Instagram user." So it is unlikely that you will be able to preschedule a number of posts using scheduling tools like you can for Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook. But doing the majority of the work (such editing your picture, writing the caption, inserting the tagged users, researching your hashtags etc) and hitting button when its time to post is a nice time saving option.

Latergramme

You can schedule and manage your Instagram posts using the Latergramme app from your mobile device, available for Apple devices and Android. When its time to post, a notification will prompt you to open and post via Instagram. If you manage two or more accounts, you will have to upgrade to the premium account with allows you to schedule up to 250 posts a month.

Take Off

Take Off also offer a similar service but takes it a step further by also crunching the analytics for you and giving you advice on the best time to post , and even analyzes your caption to suggest the best hashtags to reach more people outside your group of followers. Which is a great feature! Especially for those starting out on Instagram and learning about the potential for them and their business! It claims to help you increase comments and likes, and allows you to schedule up to 10 posts a day (if you have time). Plus its available to both Apple and Android users!

Our Recommendation - ONLYPULT

The best solution for scheduling Instagram posts without having to worry about pushing them through at a later time is ONLYPULT. We use this to upload our photos without any limits from our desktop and they are published on our Instagram account on the required day and time. At a reasonable starting price of $12 a month you can also manage a number of accounts at one through one easy web-based interface without logging in and out (phew we know how much you hate doing that on the mobile). ONLYPULT helps you find out the best time to post, most popular hashtags plus you can check out what the brands you admire are doing and repost them in seconds.

These apps help you plan your time in a smarter way, which is a must when it comes to promoting your business on social media. If you are still on the fence and or unsure about the potential opportunities of using Instagram, check out how these great businesses are using Instagram.

Sophie Davies

Sophie Davies is the co-founder and resident social media and content strategist at Prim'd Marketing. Sophie has worked with an international portfolio of clients in the fashion industry, ranging from Lacoste and Calvin Klein to independent designers, as well as consulting with brands in the lifestyle, wedding, parenting and publishing industries on their social media marketing.

Prim'd Marketing helps businesses and personal brands look and sound like the best versions of themselves through a brand positioning and content marketing program called 'The Brand Plan'. The foundation and guiding light to any subsequent branding, website and content marketing.

You can connect with her on Linkedin, Instagram or Twitter

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