How to Schedule Instagram Stories: 2024 Guide

Imagine this: you’re relaxing on the beach, sipping a cocktail, and your Instagram stories are still rolling out and getting likes and comments. Magic? No, just smart planning! Anyone who’s dabbled in posting stories knows how killer it can be for your reach when you go silent. 

You want your followers to see your awesome stories consistently, but you don’t have time to post every hour? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! Today, we’ll show you how to effectively schedule your Instagram stories so they work for you, even when you’re off relaxing. 

Why Schedule Instagram Stories?

Ever heard that 15% to 25% of users click on links in branded stories? Plus, over 500 million people watch Instagram stories daily, and 70% of them do it every day. Impressive, right? So why not make sure your stories grab attention too? Here’s why scheduling stories is a must-have in 2024:

• Time Savings;
• Consistent Brand Voice;
• Flexible Content Posting;
• Avoiding Mistakes.

Now, let’s check out more about these benefits!

Time Savings

You wake up, sip your coffee, and remember: "Oh no, I need to post a story!" Sound familiar? Scheduling stories will save you from this panic. Create your content in advance, set the publishing time, and let Instagram do its magic while you go about your day.

Imagine you own a bookstore and run the brand's Instagram page. Schedule stories announcing new arrivals and promotions. Your audience stays in the loop, and you can focus on restocking or even take a little vacation.

Consistent Brand Voice

Every brand has its “thing,” its voice. You can plan how you want to engage with your audience and what imagery to use. This is important, especially if multiple people handle the content. A consistent style is maintained, even if the team has different perspectives. If a whole digital marketing team works on the brand's Instagram, planning is non-negotiable.

Karina Egle, SEO Specialist at ecommerce platform Whop says that consistency in Instagram isn’t just about a pretty picture, it’s about building trust. When your followers see a cohesive and well thought-out feed they perceive the brand as reliable and professional. 

Suppose you have an account for a craft coffee shop. It’s better to plan out how you’ll showcase new coffee varieties and stylish cups rather than posting on the fly. Your followers will see stories in a cohesive style and will easily recognize your coffee shop’s insta page among many others.

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Flexible Content Posting

Love experimenting? With story planning, you can try different things: post content at various times, test new formats. This helps you understand when your audience is most active and what they truly love.

Let’s illustrate this with a hypothetical food blogger. In the morning, our blogger posts quick breakfast recipes, and in the evening—dinner ideas. What does he/she achieve? The blogger can analyze reach and other metrics to see when followers engage more. Are dinner ideas getting better responses? The blogger adjusts to fit the audience’s routine.

Avoiding Last-Minute Mistakes

Mistakes happen. But why stress over a wrong link or typo if you can check everything beforehand? Planning gives you time for a calm review and correction. Yes, for small blogs, making a slight typo to bait followers into engagement has become a bit of a trend. And sometimes, it works.

But what if we’re talking about important announcements or ad campaigns for big accounts or serious businesses? Those are not the kind of tricks they use.

Suppose you manage the account for an event organizer. Schedule stories with details about concerts or exhibitions and take your time to double-check all links and dates. Your followers get accurate info, and you get less stress.

Planning Instagram stories is just convenient. It’s hard to deny this benefit. But besides that, it’s a real strategy. It saves time, maintains brand style, provides flexibility, and helps avoid mistakes.

5 Top Tips to Schedule Instagram Stories

Alright, now that we all understand why it’s important to schedule stories, let’s get to the fun part—tips for planning your Instagram stories!

Follow Strategic Timing

Why is choosing the right time to post Instagram stories so important? Seriously, it’s not just “post and forget.” Want as many people as possible to see your stories? You need to approach the process strategically.

1. Know Your Audience. First, figure out when your followers are hanging out on Instagram. Use Instagram analytics or tools. These will show you when your followers are most active. Going back to our hypothetical coffee shop account: try posting stories in the morning when people are craving their morning coffee fix, or in the evening when they’re looking to unwind. 
2. Experiment with Timing. Don’t be afraid to try different times. Post stories at various times of the day and see when your followers are most responsive. Maybe morning discount stories will be more popular than evening new arrivals?
3. Keep Up with Trends and Events. Special events and holidays are a great opportunity to grab attention. Prepare stories in advance and post them at the right time. If you run a bookstore account, create stories featuring beach reads before summer vacation. 
4. Consider Time Zones. If you have followers from all over the world, consider time zone differences. Thus, you will reach more people. Managing an international travel agency account? Post stories about the best Greek beaches in the morning Greek time, so followers in the US see them before starting their day. 

Keep a Content Calendar

What do all the cool accounts with millions of followers have in common? They don’t just post randomly. They plan. And they do it meticulously. Here are some top tips for keeping a content calendar.

1. Plan Content in Advance. You don’t want to stress about what to post every day, right? Imagine having content lined up for a week or even a month ahead. For instance, a popular travel blogger planned all their stories about their trip to Italy in advance, including beautiful views, local food, and interesting facts about places. Big bloggers and those managing Instagram for large businesses often have a content plan months in advance. 
2. Use Planning Apps. Forget pen and paper! There are tons of great apps that help with content planning. Try apps like Later or Planoly. You can upload all your photos and videos in advance, schedule them to post at the right time, and even see how your feed will look. There are plenty of alternatives to these apps. Try different ones and find the one that suits you best.
3. Be Flexible and Adapt. Sometimes, life throws curveballs. You might have a post planned, but then something urgent and relevant comes up. Big brands like Nike often adapt their content to current events. Leave some room for spontaneity in your calendar. Pay special attention to sad and tragic events in the world. If a national day of mourning is declared, posting stories about a sale kickoff with fireworks and balloons is not just inappropriate; it can kill your brand.
4. Work with Feedback. Your followers are your best critics and helpers. Analytics are great, but you won’t get the full picture without feedback from those you’re posting stories for. Periodically run polls to find out what content they’d like to see.

Share Diverse Content

Let’s talk about making your Instagram Stories interesting and diverse. Monotony is boring! Big accounts don’t just keep their followers hooked for nothing—they play on variety.

Use Different Formats 

Don’t just stick to photos. Videos, GIFs, Boomerangs, live streams—they all add dynamics. Big accounts like @wework masterfully play with formats. They mix videos with employee interviews, Boomerangs from coworking spaces, and infographics on productivity. This keeps interest high. 

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There should also be a logical sequence in posting various formats. For example, a video report from an event followed by an infographic with key data and a poll about impressions makes sense.

Tell Stories 

People love stories, especially those they can relate to. For example, if you run a fitness account, share a story about how you overcame obstacles on your journey to a healthy lifestyle. Or share stories of your followers who achieved success thanks to your advice. Big bloggers like Jessica Alba with her @jessicaalba account actively use storytelling. She doesn’t just show new products from her beauty line but also tells stories about their creation, sharing personal experiences and memories.

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Mini-series work well too. For example, "A Week in the Life of a Product" or "From Idea to Implementation." This helps to engage your audience deeper into your brand.

Interactive Is Everything 

Engage your followers in conversation. Use poll stickers, questions, quizzes. For example, if you run a cooking account, ask, "What dish do you want to see next?" or run a poll, "Which is tastier: chocolate cake or carrot cake?"

Many businesses actively use interactive elements. They run polls, hold quizzes, and use question stickers. Yes, this helps engage the audience and grab their attention for more than a second. But they also collect valuable data on customer preferences.

Infographics and Useful Data 

Brands like @hubspot often share useful infographics and data. This makes content informative. But the main goal and result are that it strengthens their reputation as experts in their field. @nike also used this trick in their latest campaign.

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You can use this too. Share insights and trends related to your niche. It could be something like "Top 5 Marketing Trends for 2024" or "Interesting Facts About Our Product’s Production." The main thing is to use simple and clear graphics. Don’t overload infographics with information, leave only the most important. Overloaded stories show much worse results and are often skipped by users.

Behind the Scenes and Personal Moments 

Show what usually stays behind the scenes. This makes the account more human and brings you closer to the audience. For example, if you own a small cafe, show the process of making a favorite dessert or share funny moments from the team’s life. 

"Behind-the-scenes" series of Stories work well. This could be something like "A Day in the Life of Our Business" or "How We Prepare for the New Season." Don’t forget, diversity is the key to holding attention.

All About Metrics

Okay, you’re posting great Instagram Stories, but how do you know they’re really working? In this section, we’ll talk about how to analyze results and improve content using data. Yes, it’s a bit technical, but it’s essential!

Before checking out tools, let’s understand what to track. The main metrics include:

• Views: How many times your Stories were viewed;
• Swipe Ups: How many times viewers clicked the link in your Stories;
• Reactions: The number of likes, comments, and replies;
• Completions: The percentage of people who watched your Stories to the end.

If you have a business account, Instagram Insights is the basics. It’s a built-in tool that shows all the main metrics. To access it, simply go to the "Insights" section in your profile.

Want more data? Use additional tools like:

• Hootsuite Analytics helps track metrics over time, compare different periods, and see how numbers change over time.
• Google Analytics is great for analyzing traffic if you run a blog or website and want to know how many people came from Instagram.
• Sprout Social offers in-depth audience analysis and helps you better understand who your followers are.

Now that you have the data, it’s time to use it to your advantage! For example, if you notice that polls in Stories get more reactions than just photos, do more polls. Or if Instagram Insights show that your audience is most active on Wednesday evenings, post something cool and important on that day.

Don’t be afraid to analyze not only successes but also failures. If a Story didn’t get the expected response, try to understand why. Maybe the posting time was bad, or the topic didn’t interest the audience. There can be many reasons. But Instagram is a very logical social network, and you can definitely find the reason.

Top Tools for Planning Instagram Stories

Okay, let’s be real: nobody wants to spend a ton of time planning content. We’re all here to create awesome Stories and enjoy the process, not get bogged down in schedules. But to do it stylishly and effectively, you need the right tools. We’ve mentioned some handy cool apps throughout the article. Let’s check out more: 

1. Later. This is a straightforward and useful tool. It's great for small to medium-sized blogs. This app helps you upload photos and videos in advance. You can schedule their release so everything looks stylish and at the right time. Preview and other cool features are, of course, available. You can also add stickers and hashtags directly in Later.
2. Hootsuite. The master of social media management. This is perfect if you work in a digital agency and manage multiple client accounts. It allows you to manage not only Instagram but other social networks too. A cool feature: you can set up automatic reports to track what works best.
3. Planoly. A visual paradise for aesthetics fans. This app lets you plan content in advance and see how everything will look together. Planoly supports planning not just Stories but also Reels videos. And that’s important for boosting your account (Reels are booming on Insta now).
4. Buffer. Simplicity at its best. This is a simple yet awesome tool for planning content. It lets you quickly schedule and publish Stories without getting bogged down in complicated settings. You can analyze engagement with its built-in analytical tools.
5. Facebook Creator Studio. If you’re looking for something free yet cool, try Facebook Creator Studio. It’s a tool from Facebook itself that lets you manage content on Instagram and Facebook. Plan not just Stories but also posts, and manage your shop integration directly through Creator Studio.

So, you’ve got a full arsenal of tools for planning Instagram Stories. Now you know what to use, so just figure out which one best meets your needs.

Conclusion

So, we’ve reached the finish line of our guide to planning Instagram Stories in 2024. Got a clearer idea of what to do with your Stories now? As you can see, proper planning is a strategy. Plan and use analytics tools to track what works and what doesn’t. And remember, Instagram Stories aren’t just a way to share moments. They’re a powerful tool to connect with your audience.

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