Schedule Instagram Stories

The Story composer lets you plan story content in advance, for example a launch countdown or a flash-sale announcement, and have it publish automatically on Instagram.

Before you begin

• Connect an Instagram professional account (Business, or Creator through the direct connection method). Personal profiles are not supported.
• Upload your images or videos to the Media Library if you want to reuse existing files.

Limits

• Up to 10 images or videos in one story set.
• Images: 8 MB maximum, JPEG format.
• Videos: shorter than 60 seconds.
• Captions, text overlays, stickers, and tags cannot be added from Social Planner, because Instagram does not allow that through connected tools. Add those effects to your artwork before uploading, or post natively in the Instagram app.

Create a story

1. Go to Marketing > Social Planner and click + New Post, then Create New Post.
2. Under Post to, select your Instagram professional account or accounts. Other networks selected here will not show the story.
3. Set Content Type to Story.
4. Click Upload image or video and add up to 10 files.
5. Use the arrow next to the post button to publish now, schedule it, or send it for approval.
6. To finish later, click Save for later; it is kept as a draft.

Uses

• Product reveal series timed to a launch.
• Event countdowns.
• Time-limited promotions announced at the right moment for each time zone.

Good to know: Design text and branding directly into your images before upload, since the composer cannot add overlays itself.