The new way to schedule Instagram posts with Hootsuite

To quote one of my favorite television shows, Futurama, “Good news, everyone!” You can now schedule Instagram posts using Hootsuite, and other social media tools are working on rolling it out as well.

“Wait, couldn’t you already do that?” you may be asking.

Well, sort of.

Previously, you could schedule them, but you had to have Hootsuite installed on your phone. At the scheduled posting time, you would get an alert on your phone. Once you clicked on that alert, it would open Hootsuite, which in turn would open Instagram, and then you clicked next a few times until your image posted.

Sound complicated? It was.

Now, Instagram works just like other prescheduled social media in Hootsuite. It’s completely transparent and happens without you having to do anything.

However, it’s not automatic, and there are some caveats you should be aware of.

You need to reauthorize Instagram

If you already have posts scheduled, they’ll continue to work the old way. To fix that, you need to reauthorize Instagram in the backend of Hootsuite. Here’s how you do that.

1. Click on your profile photo in the top left.
2. Select Manage Social Networks.
3. Click on the Instagram account you want to reauthorize.
4. Click on Connect with Instagram.
5. Log in to your Instagram account.
6. Click Authenticate with Facebook.
7. Enter your Facebook password and click Continue.

And if you didn’t have Instagram in there before, instead of step #3 above, just click on the Add Private Network button with the plus sign, then select Instagram in the list. Then you can jump back in with step #4 above, although you may have to click an additional Authorize button on Instagram and on Facebook.

You’re done! Well, unless your Instagram account wasn’t connected to your Facebook Page.

Your Instagram account needs to be connected to a Facebook Page

Your Instagram account needs to be a Business account, which means it needs to be connected to a Facebook Page for your organization. If you don’t already have a Facebook Page, it may be time to create one.

Assuming you have one, here’s what you do.

1. Go to the Facebook Page for your business.
2. Click on Settings on the top right.
3. In the left menu, click on Instagram.
4. Click on the Log in button.
5. Log in to your Instagram account.

If you’ve done both of those things, you’re set up and good to go! No more touching your phone to publish to Instagram. In fact, if that’s all you used the Hootsuite app on your phone for, feel free to uninstall it.