How to Schedule Instagram Posts Without Sacrificing Your Sanity
Instagram is an incredible tool for creative business owners. It can grow your audience, connect you to dream clients, and build a strong community. Butttttt, it can also drain all of your time and sanity. There are pros and cons to social media, and as an Instagram strategist & coach for creatives, I’m well aware of both. HOWEVER, when you’re smart about using your time and energy, you can minimize the negative effects. And today, you’re going to learn how, because I’m going to teach you how to schedule Instagram posts and get your life back.
Why You Should Schedule Your Posts in Advance
How long does it take you to create and share a single post? And how often are you taking time out of your day to do this? If your answer is more than fifteen minutes, more than once a week, let me introduce you to your new best friend: content batching.
Batching content means creating it all at once, and then scheduling it to go live throughout the week (or month!). Batching and scheduling content eases your mental load, reduces decision fatigue, and makes it 10x easier to stay consistent—yes, even during busy season (looking at you, wedding pros). When you plan your content in advance, you can stay visible without relying on motivation or spare time, because both can feel hard to come by sometimes. I get it.
If you’re new to batching, here is the system I use (and I do this all the damn time):
Set aside one or two days a month to focus on content.
Start by planning out ideas, writing out what you want to say, and your captions. Record them all down in one place, so you don’t have to hunt through your notes app, saved posts, and random sticky notes to find them. I actually created an easy-to-use Content Planner for exactly this purpose! It’s broken down so you plan an entire month at a time, with a content framework, analytics tracker, and idea bank.
Once you have your ideas, you can design your graphics and film anything you need to.
And then all you need to do is schedule it! You won’t have to think about it for the rest of the week, or month, or however long you planned for!
This way, you deal with content for a day or two instead of having to think about it multiple times per week, every week. I mean, how amazing would it feel to just… not have to think about it? According to our clients, it feels pretty damn great.
How to Schedule Instagram Posts
There are a lot of ways to schedule Instagram posts, but my favorite is Metricool (That’s my affiliate link. If you click on it, I will receive a small commission—no cost to you!). I have been using their software for years and recommend it to all of my clients. They have a FREE plan, and it’s so user-friendly—yes, even if you despise technology, you can use it.
To create a post, you simply enter the planning tab and click the day you’d like to post. Add your images, your caption, and voila, you’re done. With their calendar function, it’s easy to see your whole week or month of content planned out and they have a feed preview so you can see what it will look like!
If you’re not interested in Metricool, you can absolutely schedule your posts directly within the Instagram app. I don’t recommend this, though. We all know Instagram can be glitchy and unreliable, and I would hate for you to lose all of your content because it freaked out again.
Let’s Talk About Engagement
The biggest argument I hear against batching and scheduling Instagram posts is about engagement. The nay-sayers argue that if you schedule a post, you might forget about it and miss the “engagement period.” Here is a social media strategist’s honest-to-God opinion on that.
I don’t care.
Genuinely. I think the value in scheduling your posts and forgetting about them far surpasses the value of the so-called “engagement period.” Sure, I recommend that you respond to the first few comments on your post quickly. But I definitely don’t recommend being glued to your phone in hopes of magically increasing your post's reach. Can it help to be online when your post goes live? Yeah. But not at the expense of your peace.
Making Instagram Feel Easy (& Fun!) Again
If you have been scrambling on social media, trying to find something that “works” without sacrificing your time and sanity to the algorithm… I have something for you. It’s called hope.
Seriously, Instagram doesn’t have to suck so bad!! Batching content gets 10x easier when someone else develops the strategy for you, and that’s exactly what I do with the Booked & Balanced Content Calendar. Imagine having an entire month of content planned out already. When you go to schedule your content (via Metricool, hopefully), all you have to do is copy and paste. It’s easy, it’s fast, and it’s strategically designed for your business.
Take it from Brianna:
“I can post consistently now, 3 times a week, with no problem. I don't feel overwhelmed by it at all, and I feel so much better about not only how often we are posting, but also what we are posting. We have definitely seen more inquiries coming in via IG, too. This content calendar has been a game-changer!”
Are you ready to spend less time online and get more inquiries? Learn more about the Content Calendars here, and reach out to learn more, ask your questions, and get started!
