Having a content strategy in place that delivers unique, magnetic and engaging content around your brand and your product is essential to having a successful online store.
Online store owners will often forget to post content for days – or even weeks. Or they will post something in the moment, without thinking about the strategy behind what they are posting.
When you have a plan in place you don’t ever have to feel overwhelmed or unsure when it comes to content creation.
Creating and scheduling your content in batches is a great way to ensure your content is published in line with your strategy, and you don’t miss a post just because you’re busy.
Which tool to use to schedule your posts
There are plenty of scheduling tools, however, they tend to lead to lower reach and therefore less engagement than if you posted it natively.
Instagram works out what content to show its users by using its algorithm. It shows your content to a percentage of your followers. It then assesses how much organic engagement your post gets when you first put it up. If it gets none, then the algorithm will deem your post irrelevant and it won’t show it to more of your audience. If it gets lots of engagement, it will think your post is relevant to your audience and show more of your audience.
So, we want as much engagement as possible.
We’ve always recommended posting natively. Meaning using the Instagram app to post, rather than using a scheduling tool. The good news is that Facebook (which owns Instagram) has brought out the ability to schedule natively within the platform. So, we don’t need to use a third-party app.
We have also noticed lately, that pages that use a third-party scheduling app like Later or Hootsuite are getting temporarily blocked from using the posting function.
There are still a few limitations, however, I predict the features will be regularly tested and updated and we will soon have the ability to view by grid layout, add the first comment (which is where you load in the bulk of your hashtags) and other cool features some of the other apps have. Stay tuned.
How to create nice line spacing in Instagram posts
One of the limitations Instagram seems to have is nice line spacing. Seems like such a small thing, but there is nothing worse than writing a long post with lots of paragraph breaks, only for Instagram to squish it all up.
In this post, I am going to show you how to schedule your posts using Facebook Creator Studio AND make sure your posts have lovely line spacing.
How to schedule posts to Instagram (with beautiful line spacing):
Step 1: Log into the Facebook profile you use to manage your and go to https://business.facebook.com/creatorstudio
Step 2: Click on the Instagram icon in the very top menu bar. Select the Instagram account you want to schedule to:
Step 3: Select Create Post and then Instagram Feed:
Step 4: Click on Add Content and select the image you want to use:
Step 5: Crop the image if required then select Save:
Step 6: Copy the text you want to go with your post (including line spacing and emojis). Open up this cool free tool and paste it into the text box. Click Content (© to clipboard):
Step 7: Paste the text you just copied from the converter tool into Your Post text box in Creator Studio:
Step 8: Click on the drop down box to Publish, Schedule or save as Draft. If scheduling, select the date and time you want it to go live, then select Schedule:
Now, just because you can schedule your posts directly to Instagram, don’t forget to check your Instagram app once a day to reply to comments and to engage with your audience and other accounts. I recommend turning off your notifications and treating Instagram like a serious business tool, because it is.
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Written by Megan Winter
Megan is an award-winning marketer and has worked with some of the fastest-growing eCommerce brands in the world.
Megan loves helping ethically-produced, heart-centred, soul-driven online store owners to make more income and achieve more impact.
